Excessive Use Of Technology In Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 Essay

To begin, the excessive use of technology forces people to suffer from a lack of compassion for others. In fact, in Fahrenheit 451, Clarisse says: “‘I’m afraid of children my own age. They kill each other. Did it always use to be that way? My uncle says no’” (Bradbury 28). The members of Clarisse and Montag’s society are so wrapped up in their electronics that they don’t take the time to appreciate others. This results in them lacking empathy, and acting out by hurting one another. They care so little about the fate of other people that they treat them as though they cannot feel; injuring them to the point of death. Also, not only do they physically destroy lives, they destroy the lives of those close to the newly dead.

In fact, in Fahrenheit 451, Beatty tells Montag that “‘life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work’” (Bradbury 53). People in this world believe that they are satisfied with their life, and will even go as far as to tell others they’re happy. In reality, the only thing they crave is electronics. They are dependent on this form of entertainment, or immediate satisfaction, and have lost all morals and the meaning of their existence. The one thing they enjoy is isolation from others; they crave the action of plunging themselves into a world other than their own. This is unhealthy, and although no one realizes it, they are participating in this alternate reality because they don’t like the reality they’re living in. Another detail is that in the book, Montag realizes that “He [is] not happy...He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and ask for it back” (Bradbury 9). Montag is one of the few people in Bradbury’s world that realizes how truly sad he is. For the entirety of his life, he was like everyone else, believing he was happy, and he liked what he was doing. It took a social outcast asking him if he was being truthful for him to realize that he, in fact, wasn’t. Most of the people Montag is surrounded by never realize that they, too, aren’t satisfied. They