How Our Societies Are "Matched"
The society in The novel Matched has very many connections to the way our society is. Some connections are through Social Media, Technology Use and Government Control. Here are some ways that these catorgories are "Matched."
SOCIAL MEDIA:
No matter what kind of advertisement you are looking at, it will always make you think.
The Society in Matched on many and different levels control the way the characters thought. About how they viewed a perfect life. They believed that whatever Society viewed was perfect for them, was something they knew had to be perfect. Advertisement has a connection to this type of Society, in a different yet similar way. Advertisement shoves different views and products that will eventually make you desire that object or view in order to be perfect.
This website gives 10 ways on how advertisement controls our lives. They say that advertisement came from being a form of communication to a way of life. It has different quotes and connections between advertisement and our lives.
Matched Society, the officials decide; Who you love. Where you work and when you die. The Society is like our advertising and social media. It has control on the we think "normal" and "perfect are.
Who we love, can be controled by dating sites. Social media makes us think that we can always find love easier by being "matched" with people who are similar to you. The only thing different between matching banquets and dating sites is the right to chose. You supply your interests, beliefs, and other information that would help find that "special" someone then they match you with people who are similar to you.
"I've waited so long for this: for my Match Banquet. Where I'll see, for the first time, the face of the boy who will be my Match. It will be the first time I hear his name." (Page 4)
Then we can choice who we want to learn more about. Just like the matched banquet, we can be matched with people we dont know, someone we arent interested in or not end up falling in love with them.
"I've waited so long for this: for my Match Banquet. Where I'll see, for the first time, the face of the boy who will be my Match. It will be the first time I hear his name." (Page 4)
Then we can choice who we want to learn more about. Just like the matched banquet, we can be matched with people we dont know, someone we arent interested in or not end up falling in love with them.
We use technology to find love and happiness, in matched, technology and "Sortng" is used to find love and happiness, letting us have access to our "perfect life."
TECHNOLOGY USE:
In our society, we have become more and more dependent on technology. In the Matched society, technology is basically all they use. They are dependent on it for their health, knowledge, and future.The Matched society uses technology for their health, by programming and controling their meal portions, meal types, and use programmed pills to change there moods.
"I know what the blue and green tablets do. I don't know anyone who knows for certain what the red tablets does. There has been rumors about it for years." (Page 22)
We use x-rays, scans, and other techonogly to benefit our health. Matched uses computer type things to hold our there knowledge that has been limited and controlled by their government. They are not taught how to write with pens but simply type what they need.
"He is writing in an old-fashioned, curved kind of writing, like the script on my compact. I've seen samples of it before but I don't know how to do it. No one does. All we can do is type." (Page 170)
We use computers to research and educate ourselves quickly and easily, the difference between our knowledge from computer is that we are not fully controlled by our government on what we research and learn off the technology.
http://www.educause.edu/ECAR/HowTechnologyWillShapeOurFutur/162468
Pretty soon, technology in our society will be at high dependancy rates and our whole world will be evolved around it. In these youtube clips it shows how our future may become if we become so dependent as well as a funny clip of how santa gets around now a days!
http://youtu.be/5qcmCUsw4EQ (Santa Clip) http://youtu.be/dy5MIJ4EgvI (Future World)
GOVERNMENT CONTROL:
In Matched their government has full control over the citizens. Every decision in the end is based on government. The government or "'officials' decide; Who you love. Where you work. When you die". (Front page) They are continually watched, sorted, observed and controlled. Their lives are planned by the government with little to no choice. In our world, an example of connection is "Big Brother Government." This "organization" explains how government and corporations are taking our freedom and privacy from us, and having control on us without a choice.
I think that with all the media and other influencial things, we are continually being forced into government choosing and control. I feel that the government having control on us is a situation that will and can occur at any time.
Now remember; "Big Brother Is Watching You."
This video is interesting because its makes you think of "what if " situations of us and our governments.
This song by Micheal Jackson and Rockwell "Somebody's Watching Me" is a song talking about how we have no idea anymore if we are being watched every second of the day. Are we truely living our own life?
http://youtu.be/-CeAjDpTiLE (What if Government Controlled You?)
http://youtu.be/jlm5FoQEdrI (Micheal Jackson & Rockwell - "Somebody's Watching Me"
CONCLUSION:
Now hopefully, you can tell that there are a lot of connections between our world and the Matched Socities. The connections are all about control. How governments and technology can so easily take control over our lives. This is can be a pretty severe problem, considering the dystopian atomosphere this much control consists of. We need to become more aware of the things we let control and even the things that can. We need to also be more aware of who can be controlling us and work together to become a more a more utopian world.
