"Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click? Pic? Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline!” (Bradbury 55). Beatty assertively lectures Montag in Bradbury’s dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury’s exaggeration of the media from 1953 may not be entirely far from the nature of electronic media today. From the invention of the Internet, the forms of mass media have evolved through the years. The shift towards the use of electronic media appears to be an unavoidable occurrence. Fahrenheit 451 depicts the state of a future society that ominously shows similarities …show more content…
His prophecy makes us question the potential of how our society can possess the ability to control the masses with electronic media. When a random man dies in place of Montag to cover up the government’s incapability, Granger speculates that "they didn't show the man's face in focus. Even your best friends couldn't tell if it was you. They scrambled it just enough to let the imagination take over.” (Bradbury 149-150). Correspondingly, this shows similarities to our media manipulation in advertising where businesses sell their product on television breaks, banners on websites and mobile applications by paying media outlets to present their products in a one-sided way so viewers buy more of their products. However, in our society, the use of social media prevents us from becoming like Fahrenheit 451’s world. Everyone has the ability to easily share anything, including their opinions, events, ideas, and trivial thoughts about everything, which can eliminate bias and propaganda. Moreover, social media enables people to connect with each other and have easier communication. In 2008, Twitter and other social media tools spread information about the terrorist attack in Mumbai (Busari). Contrasting from traditional news media, which gives people information and they absorb it by reading and watching, today’s audiences choose what they read and also …show more content…
The world of Fahrenheit 451 bans all books left in the world in order to stop intellectual thinking. Beatty points out that “once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere” but “films and radios, magazines, books levelled down to a sort of paste pudding norm” (Bradbury 56). Although we did not go to that extent of burning books, the time we spend on reading have decreased and the time spent on media has increased significantly. A study from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the average American reads only 19 minutes a day, teenagers, spend just four minutes a day reading on their days off. Data continues to prove the growth of electronic media usage, A Nielsen Company audience report from 2016 reveals that adults in the United States devoted about 10 hours and 39 minutes of screen time for media each day. In like manner, “Television not only ate away magazines’ national advertising market share, but it also took readers away — general entertainment seekers” (Randle). From a young age, we are exposed to various types of electronic media contributing to negative health outcomes such as obesity, tobacco use, drug and alcohol use, and low academic achievement, according to a review of 173 studies on Media and Child and Adolescent Health arranged by various universities. These risks compare to the children in