Jimmy Nguyen

English
Petrow
Ray Bradburys Predictions
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 portrays a materialistic society that has forgotten social
interaction with each other. Writing in 1953, Ray Bradbury warns readers about a future that could
happen. Bradbury notices dehumanization in society as technology makes people become less
individual and incapable of independent thought. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury makes
predictions of the future that is frighteningly accurate to what life today is like. Some of the
predictions Bradbury makes had to do with the way people and machines intermingled with each
other. Ray Bradbury predicted news media portraying the world through destruction and violence,
society losing social skills with friends and family because of a digital wall, and children being
shoved through the school system only to go to places to destroy things.

News is the main outlet our society uses to communicate with each other. Whether it is
national or local news, or the lunch your friend posted on Facebook, it is supposed to unite the
community together and help people gather information. Today in this digital age, however, the
news broadcasts more violent things in the world. In the book, news media is used by the
government to find Montag. In the end, the government ended up killing an innocent man just to
satisfy the people watching the news. That scene was the pinnacle of reality, showing the foul and
sinister side of society, showing how much they love to see someone else suffering. Bradbury looks
down upon live media coverage and describes the harsh reality of our social minds . Fahrenheit 451

is full of warnings of where society could be headed if it is not careful. However, these predictions
are still remarkably exaggerated, when contrasted with today's society especially mass mediocrity
and censorship. Modern media is able to bring to important issues to the public's attention, while
media in Fahrenheit 451 bring only the entertaining issues to the public's attention.
Oftentimes, we try to distract ourselves from the real world through the 'digital wall. Much
of Fahrenheit 451 is devoted to depicting a future United States society bombarded with messages
and imagery by an omnipresent media. Instead of actually showing any signs of social interactions,
the characters in the novel live their lives in rooms with a giant television the size of a wall. These
TVs portray dramas in which the viewer's name is woven into the program and the viewer is able to
interact with fictional characters called "the family." Scenes changes rapidly, images flash quickly in
bright colors, all of it designed to produce distraction and awe, but no one is able to comprehend it.
Media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter have worked wonders for many people, allowing them
to connect instantly with friends and family, but have also shut people out from their social routines
and habits. As a society, we are becoming more and more antisocial. People are always on their
phones, texting or emailing friends and family. We do not really see people face to face anymore,
theres always a screen between them. Bradbury predicts that children hiding behind this digital
wall are sucked into a zombie-like state as a screen sucks the life away from them. This is true
today because digital interactions and social media is the most convenient and easy way to talk to
someone. Throughout the novel, Bradbury portrays mass media as a veil that obscures real
experience and interferes with the characters' ability to think deeply about their lives and societal
issues. Bradbury isn't suggesting that media other than books couldn't be enriching and fulfilling,

but that society intertwining with mass media is depriving people from the imaginations found in
books. As Faber tells Montag, "It isn't books you need, it's some of the things that once were in
books.... The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios and
televisions, but are not."
Children are shoved through the school systems both in the book and in real life. Children
are told what to do, when to do it, how to do it, but never why they do it. In this dystopian society,
it seems that nobody knows why they do it as constant distractions such as perpetual
announcements of time and commercial advertisements. In the book, Clarisse tells Montag about
her school life and tells him she's left school because they think shes uncooperative and different
because shes always asking questions. She describes the school day to MontagTV class, lots of sports,
making pictures, transcribing history, and memorizing answers. She also describes what passes for
sociability among her peersgoing to a Fun Park, breaking windows, daredevil games in cars, shouting,
dancing, and fighting. Bradburys predictions are eerily accurate because children in real life face that
problem every day. They are shoved through the school system, as teachers try to cram information in
the students brain while the students are trying to process the information. What little information
they do process down from that class is then lost as they are pushed into a new class repeating the same
processes. In the end, the students are so stressed out they have to go to special stores and areas to
break things without destroying things you arent meant to break. This relates to our modern day
videogames where we simulate violence without causing anyone or anything to get hurt.

Fahrenheit 451 is full of warnings of where society could be headed if it is not careful. In
conclusion, Bradbury's book shows the downfalls of his dystopian society through the evils of the
community within it. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury shows how the modern way of living will

eventually alter life on earth completely. Ray Bradbury makes predictions of the future that is
frighteningly accurate to what it is like today with news media portraying the world through
destruction and violence, society losing social skills with friends and family because of a digital
wall, and children being shoved through the school system only to go to places and destroy things