In the dystopian world of Feed, most of the population has a chip implanted so they are receiving a constant stream of information directly to their brains. Even their messaging to one another is directly through The Feed.
Our protagonist, Titus, is living his normal teenage life with friends and The Feed until he meets Violet, who was homeschooled and had her implant later in life. She introduces a different perspective on the constant feed of data being received. Additionally, the question of who benefits most from The Feed is raised.
In the background of the story there is thrum of dissent, but it never quite comes front and center. The further into this book I got the more I started seeing parallels to our current use (or perhaps overuse) of electronic devices and social media, particularly the way service providers tailor the data we see.
This book was published in 2002 and the similarities to the present day are striking. The only difference is that we don’t have chips in our brains – yet!
Lola Nichols
Information Specialist
