Technology's Impact: A Journey through Jobs and Huxley

“What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds” was said by Steve Jobs, who is the CEO of Apple Inc. Computers relate to a big part of technology, and what steve is saying is that technology has a big impact the way we think. Aldous Huxley also talks about technology in his novel, Brave New World; his story is based in a futuristic society that focuses mainly on technological improvement. Huxley talks about how technology can have an impact on society; and he proves that technology enriches human life in his novel, Brave New World, by showing how it can improve transportation, education, and birth.

Transportation is one of the technological advancements presented to show how technology can improve human life. As shown in the novel, the Alphas each have their own helicopters in

which they use to travel around the World State, while the lower classes would take monorail trains: “An incessant buzzing of helicopters filled the twilight.

Every two and a half minutes a bell and the screech of whistles announced the departure of one of the monorail trains which carried the lower caste golfers back from their separate course to the metropolis” (Huxley 72). Some may argue that Huxley is trying to prove that having this much transportation can cause , but Huxley is really saying that more transportation makes travel easy and convenient for humans.

Technology improves education as well stated by Huxley in Brave New World. The scientists of the World State, as shown in chapter 2, perform various experiments on children and infants in order to teach them how to act and think in certain ways in order to make society better for everyone. One of these experiments was electroshock therapy: “The Head Nurse, who was standing by a switchboard at the other end of the room, pressed down a little lever. There was a violent explosion. Shriller and ever shriller, a siren shrieked. Alarm bells

maddeningly sounded. The children started, screamed; their faces were distorted with terror” (Huxley 21). At the beginning of the experiment, flowers and books were placed into a room where then the infants were placed; When the infants reached for or touch either object, the alarms went off and the infants were given an electric shock. The experiment was performed to teach the infants that flowers and books were bad and to stay away from them; the outcome is that when the infants become adults, then they can focus on their work rather than reading or going out to smell flowers. Another experiment performed was hypnopaedia, or sleep-teaching: “While the child was asleep, a broadcast programme from London suddenly started to come through; and the next morning, to the astonishment of his crash and crash, Little Reuben woke up repeating word for word a long lecture by curious old writer…” (Huxley 24). As Huxley states, the experiment is performed on a child, and as he slept, a broadcast was played through his ears; the outcome of the experiment was that the boy was able to repeating everything he heard the night before. This may be considered as mind control, but Huxley is saying that sleep teaching can improve education. Having this technology proves it can enrich human life because being able to learn new information during sleep can be more efficient than sitting in a classroom, where the child could get bored and not pay attention.
Huxley also shows in his novel that technology can enrich human life by improving to process of birth. As stated in chapter 1, humans are not created naturally in the World State: “Still leaning against the incubators he gave them, while the pencils scurried illegibly across the pages, a brief description of the modern fertilizing process” (Huxley 5). This process is called the Bokanovsky’s Process, and it creates humans with technology instead. Some may argue that this process of birth is inhumane and could cause defects to the humans, but Huxley is really saying that this technology improves human life because this could help the society by preventing over-population, or underpopulation.
Technology is a big topic that Huxley discusses about in his novel, Brave New World, and he states that technology can have a huge impact on life. Huxley states that technology has an impact on transportation, education, and birth all throughout his writing, and he successfully achieved his message by stating details that can be related to our real life. Personally, I think that Huxley’s message in Brave New World is that technology can have an impact on our society for the better. Society can be better if technology can be used at its full potential, for example, if we create humans with technology instead of naturally, then there is no worry for overpopulation, which is a problem going on today. Steve Jobs once said, “What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds,” and he is right because technology changes the way we think. The novel has a great significance on society in the way of showing how technology can change everything for good.