Mt Anderson's Feed Essay

For all of human history, society has been dominated by structures of power and discipline. It was realized early on that discipline was necessary to keep a population in order and prevent actions that might undermine or go against the ideals of the state. Of course, any society without power structures or discipline would be entirely anarchic. When we look at discipline and power in society today, many mechanisms at work are the product of the technologies we have created. Technology today gives more power to any individual person than at any time in history. This power also remains in the hands of those in positions of control and this technology is being used in ways to oversee the civilian population and punish those who step out of line.
This devices, when embedded in the body, gives access to total societal interconnectedness. It provides entertainment, social networking, ecommerce, and just about everything the internet can do today; the only difference is that it is implanted in the body of the user. Those who do not have a feed are ostracized by society. Having this technological integration gave corporations greater access to collect data about their users and market more products in line with a particular user’s interests. This expanded both social and corporate panoptic mechanisms. Socially, having a feed meant that it became easier and easier to keep up with trends. So easy, in fact, that trends such as hairstyles, clothing, body modifications, and entertainment can change moment to moment. This leads to individuals in society being forced to keep up with the trends or risk becoming out of touch. This social panopticon is easy to see, because everyone knows if everyone else is keeping up with trends and those who don’t are socially disciplined by means of exclusion. This social panopticon was catalyzed by corporate mechanisms brought on by the