Thomas Dow
Mrs. Locke
ENG4U
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
The Ideals of a Metal Expression Would you say a robot that is designed to feel and think they are human is any different in comparison to an actual person? Or perhaps that a person who feels and thinks like a machine are any different from a robot? Children of modern society make this question more difficult as the technology advances and the more convenient it becomes for parents to leave the care of children to the technology around them. A short story called 'The Veldt' by Ray Bradbury is a perfect example of the way we could expect children to become in the near future. Detachment and the lack or loss of emotion will be the two problems that will become ever more apparent. By design, people have learned to interact through interacting with others. For most children today most interactions are done over cell phone texts, web forums, or head sets and this is assuming that they even feel comfortable sharing things over these devices. As children grow very fond of the things that take care of them in the same way children normally grow attached to their parents. If the main source of interactions is a house that’s fully automated and gives them everything they want then they will become attached to it. If the children went so far as to only bond with the house then they would not understand how people interact in the first place. An example of a medium between only bonding with one source is Bradbury's short story. Peter and Wendy, the assumable antagonists of the story, are two young children who grow overly attached to a house that nurtured them in every way. The thing they become attached to specifically is a room called the nursery. Now even though they do become overly attached and take from the houses responses, they have also taken from their parents. What they take is the knowledge that they are emotionally involved. “Wendy was still crying and Peter joined her again. Just a moment, just one moment, just another moment of nursery, they wailed.
Oh, George, said the wife, it can't hurt.
All right-all right, if they'll only just shut up. one minute, mind you, and then off forever.
Daddy Daddy, Daddy! Sang the children, smiling with wet faces.” Such as water distorts a reflection, tears distorted true intentions. These children used false emotion as tricks to get what they wanted, and because of the cold hearts they got from bonding with the technology, they pulled it off with extreme ease and no regrets. The other dramatic impact is within the child to parent relationship. As it has been stated, children who bond with technology over parents bond less with parents and this means that the bond they have between each other suffers. What hasn’t been said yet is that when children bond only with technology, the paternal bond changes. To the kids it seems like their parents are no longer their parents. People see their parents as the people that raised them, cared for us, played with us. If all that interacts with them is technology then they are more likely to see it as the parental figure. The real parents are no longer seen as the parental figures but rather siblings or even less, a “Scrooge.” Their parents
