The Age of Earthquakes, addressed certain topics such as identity, individuality (or at least the feeling of it) and community within the internet. In a way, it attacked the readers through glittering generalities that most of the audience could relate to, but did it in a way where it created a feeling of superiority. The book uses "you" a significant amount of times where the reader can either feel attacked or encouraged. If it is something negative, the reader may brush it off and say "that isn't me, that's other people," or "yeah, I've definitely felt that way before". The book essentially critiques the stupidity of having to rely on technology and how pathetic it is, but for some reason humans have become so attached to it to the point where our lives truly couldn't be complete without it.
The annoying aspect about this book is that most everything is true. Reliability of phones has become a stronger connection than reliability of parents. Technology has become such a safety blanket to society to the point where if it is taken away, everyone would just look like lost puppies and wonder what they should do. It really then begs the question, how did people 100 years ago live without phones? How did they accomplish anything?
This world has become a generation of people who know everything, but experience nothing. Why would we go hiking when we can just see the end result on Google images?
The book creates the comment where not having any source of technology makes it impossible to create human connections. Why has this become so true? We have to add someone on Snapchat or follow them on instagram before being able to actually talk to them.
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I agree with you on the aspect that we have gone to the extent where there is a dependency on the Internet. But do you think that there's a chance that the author is biased? Although he devises "you" to get the audience's attention, do you think there are other things he uses to convey this dependency with the Internet: the color, diction, the text itself, etc.?
ReplyDeleteHey Brian, again! I totally agree with most everything you said; that the book gives insight on identity and the internet, most of which we already knew was true but was revealed and unmasked to us through the novel. However, to say everything they said was true is a bit of a stretch; many claims in the book were hyperbolic and a reach, much like an old man #hating on our generation and the internet. I think it goes with the superiority you talked about it. Even so, great ideas :)
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