WALL-E & The Digital Natives:

Recently watching the animated film WALL-E (2008), I saw the brilliant representation of a world overcome by technological advancements, to the point of dire conditions for the human race. And although the film had many subliminal messages aimed at children, such as sitting in front of the television or computer can cause obesity and laziness, the film also was incredibly relevant to our current social condition in which we live in a world inflicted upon by new media with both positive and disastrous results.

The film itself featured human living in an outer space station as the earth could no longer sustain human life. The human were propped up on moving bed-like devices, and had computer screens in front them predicting and offering them their next moves, whether it be going outside or getting something to eat. And course it appears living such an unnatural lifestyle resulted in the population becoming obese. There was a brilliant short scene in which a husband and wife accidently touch each other and shudder; their engagement with technology had cut off any kind of physical relationships between each other.

The major point that I took from this film is communicated through Marc Prensky’s concept of the ‘digital natives’, the latest generation born into a world thriving and participating in the technological advancements, and as a result do not know the simplistic relations of life before this time. What we see is that with continued infiltration of the youngest generation, they start to sway to adopting the easier technological advancements over social relations, which is seen within the film. As a culture, we are slowly on track towards being dominated at one point or another by technology, and I think it is essential to ensure children have available access, but that they also understand that using such new media is not the answer to every question.