<p>Since the invention of television, the medium has had its ups and downs. At first, television watching was a communal affair; the first television set owners in a neighborhood would proudly invite the neighbors in to view the marvelous box. In time, however, television came to have an isolating effect on viewers; as the painter Andy Warhol once said, "When I got my first television set, I stopped caring so much about having close relationships." </p>
<p>What are your thoughts on the idea that television has turned out to isolate people instead of bringing them together. Compose an essay in which you express your views on this topic. Your essay may support, refute or qualify the views expressed in the excerpt. What you write, however, must be relevant to the topic under discussion. Additionally, you must support your viewpoint, explaining your reasoning and providing examples based on your studies and/or experience. </p>
<p>Essay:</p>
<pre><code> The television, owned by millions of consumers all over the world, has the potential to isolate its viewers. Although not focused on the invention of television itself, the novels Brave New World and Never Let Me Go predict a world in which technology has an isolating effect.
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<p>Brave New World is about a dystopia surrounded by the ideas community, stability and identity. In this society, humans are bred out of test tubes, and the movies, or "feelies", literally make you feel like a part of the film. However, through technology the citizens are brainwashed, or "conditioned", into accepting certain social values. For example, the term "mother" is treated almost as if it were pornographic, and having a monogamous relationship is frowned upon. The elimination of love is isolating the citizens in a sense that they cannot have more than shallow relationships with each other.</p>
<p>Never Let Me Go is another novel in which technology has an isolating effect on the characters. There is technology present today to perform organ transplants on patients, however, in this world the process of organ transplantation has been taken a step further. Real people, such as the main character Kathy, are "farmed" for their organs. They are raised so that they can die for those in need or organs. Because the people in this book who are not donors are reluctant to get rid of a certain technological feature that could potentially save their lives, they are reluctant to get rid of it. This isolates the donors from the rest of society, to the point where they are almost nonexistent in the minds of the non-donors. </p>
<p>Both Brave New World and Never Let Me Go predict worlds in which technology has an isolating effect on its characters. Once television watching was a communal affair, however, today families may have as many as 3-6 televisions in their homes. Just as conditioning technology isolates the characters in Brave New World and life-saving medical technology isolates "donors" in Never Let Me GO, television, a growing technologhy, can potentially have a great isolating effect on its viewers.</p>