Edward Morgan Forster's The Machine Stops

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In 1909 “The Machine Stops” was written by Edward Morgan Forster. This futuristic short story is showing shocking similarities of our society in present time. Although Forster lived in the early 1900’s, this imaginative author made a bold prediction of technology being too involved in the lives of people in his story. Society might blow off the story by claiming that we could never end up like people in “The Machine Stops”, but there are many similarities that could lead us down the same road as the people. As Forster says in this book, “No one confessed the Machine was out of hand. Year by year it had served with increased efficiency and decreased intelligence… and in all the world there was not one who understood the monster as a whole… But …show more content…

Television and the radio take up so much of our time and money. Television provides millions of people around the world with jobs. We have people in this world that are reliant on looking pretty on a television to provide them money to feed and house their families. This is a perfect example of relying on technology. In addition, the radio provides many people with jobs speaking on it. People who do not speak on the radio or act on television still watch a lot of television and listen to the radio very much. Similarly, people in “The Machine Stops” do nothing but stare at a video screen all day and listen to the Machine’s radio. There is very little physical contact between people in the book. This is true of some people in the world today. People would rather stay inside and play video games or watch television rather than going out to be with friends. We are falling into a trap with technological entertainment. We need more outdoor activity to prevent as much reliance on technology for entertainment. Manual and outdoor entertainment could save our country from falling further into the technological trap we are falling

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