The Impact of Technology on Relationships in The Book "Feed" and The Film "Gattaca"

Technology and the rate of use by people have been growing exponentially and much more than the last 50 years combined. The line is only expected to get steeper meaning more and more humans are using technology. Other than the overwhelming growth in technological use the question humanity is asking How does this affect us on a personal level? How does this affect our family’s and loved ones? How does this influence our relationships? This section of inquiry has sidled its way through society. Many boggling minds have predicted how our technological advancements will be like in the near and far future and how it will affect us. This includes the gifted minds of two men who are story-tellers in their way of showing their perspective of how technology will influence our connections our bonds with one another. M.T Anderson and Andrew Niccols display this concept through characters who are placed in a dystopic yet uncannily accurate future line filled with clambering and stifling amounts of technology seeming to be advantageous but viciously disadvantaging. Within the domain of feed, M.T Anderson portrays a boy named Titus, who is from an affluent social class meeting and falling in love with violet, who dislikes technology. Titus has to adjust to this new relationship without the reliance on technology. In the movie, Gattaca people’s perspective all comes down to how genetically gifted one may be. Vincent the main character was portrayed as an unfortunate victim as he was a ‘faith born’ having no genetic alterations compared to his far more genetically superior brother Anton this made Vincent have a deep hatred towards his family due to his parent’s decision of not using technology to allow him to achieve is star high aspirations. Both stories depict struggles against a character’s relationship due to a form or cause of technology.

First and foremost, technology has predominantly impacted social priorities that also affects the characters' lack of humanity. The characters in Feed and Gattaca struggle to express themselves due to unethical social priorities set because of the unnatural impact of technology. To illustrate this point, the family connections portrayed in Gattaca seem to be worth nothing. In Gattaca, the characters are gravely discriminated against through genetic modification. Since genetic modification relies on technological advancements, Vincent being a faith born did not have ideal genetics thus his father, Antonio, deemed that he was “not worthy of his name” as before he was originally going to name his first born Anton. Not to mention, it was none other than technology that rendered Vincent “useless”. Vincent then later questions “what possessed” his parents to allow him to be a faith born “faith in God's hands” rather than making the decision to genetically dupe him. This shows how the futuristic society has lack of humanity, as they no longer consider the love and intimacy that results in a successful offspring. This society rather considers that ‘scientific intervention’ is far better to put faith into this rather than the natural way. In parallel, Feed also depicts technology taking away our humanity and severing our social priorities. For example, the Feed is a micro-chip that is embedded in the head which controls every daily interaction from the things you say to daily events. Ultimately the humans in Feed’s greed for making everything more ‘convenient’ that their lives become further and further apart from the definition of human. Titus even expresses this as “a feeling of emptiness that found its way inside my heart”. Fundamentally, the granted use of technology will shift our priorities as suggested by the book and film. That relying on technology is of higher priority to our connections to one another.

Technology obscures the relationship of the characters in Feed and Gattaca as their detection and awareness of emotion is non-existent. To explore this concept we can look into the main character of Feed, Titus and his journey. Titus displays qualities that separate him from “Mr. Ordinary Guy”. The use of technology incapacitates ourselves as the characters in Feed and Gattaca no longer know how to connect with each other. The influence of technology is drastically altering our connections with one another by its alluring perception of being better for us. In both film and book predict a future where all our minds and bodies are permanently bleeding as technology slowly eats away the very thoughts and emotions of yourself whilst your awake just staring passing it off just thinking this is modern.