Frankenstein's Foreshadowing

Frankenstein is a revolutionary novel written by Mary Shelly, a radical, intellectual, English elite, and has been a part of our culture ever since. Published in 1817 it seemed to be a warning to man against technological expansion during the Industrial Revolution. In the book the monster, created by Dr. Frankenstein, is in search of revenge for his unfulfilled life and lack of "soul." This illustrates the horror of technology taking control over man kind...having one angry synthetic robot running around the world trying to kill his creator is more than enough to worry about, let alone imagining that all technology could think for themselves, form a coalition, and systematically take over humanity and the world.

Lewis Mumford expressed this concern during the early 20th century saying that the automobile was equivalent to Frankenstein's monster. He believed that the only piece of technology more destructive at the time was the Hydrogen Bomb, yet automobiles were even more dangerous because the general public had allowed themselves to indulge in, even embrace, such technology.

Similarly, Harold Innis was equally as concerned with the enormous advances in technology during the early 20th century. He correctly worried that just as Frankenstein's monster took over and ran his creator, technology was going to do that to humans.

With this in mind we can ask ourselves...has technology taken over at least some aspects of our life? For example, many people who live outside the city would not be able to get around without their car...most could never imagine walking from point A to point B. Also, so many of us are addicted to their iPhones and Blackberries, constantly texting, facebooking, and/or tweeting. We have become used to the instant gratification of finding out information, talking to people, and doing almost everything in a matter of seconds on our phones and computers...it makes you wonder how we ever survived using dial up...and you don't even want to think about how miserable life must have been before cell phones and the internet existed! Even simply doing homework for this class requires a computer, an internet connection, and a blog update. So maybe technology is slowly taking over our lives? Can we stop it? If we could...would we even want to?