Feed

Although the novel was written in 2002, the author anticipates the mass adoption of ecommerce and online shopping that will occur within the next 10 to 20 years. Titus and his friends still shop at malls, but the feed implanted in their brains allows them to buy essentially anything they see and can afford. The primary function of the feed is to advertise to users and facilitate selling. It takes a two-pronged approach of feeding users new and constantly changing trends and then giving them the opportunity to buy things to satisfy those trends. Titus marvels that the feed has the ability to tell the user what they want before they even know they want it. In this dystopian society, consumers are trained from birth. They are bombarded with advertisements and attend schools owned and trademarked by corporations that center their teaching on how to be a consumer rather than subjects that might teach students to think critically. Those who have had the feed their entire lives cannot imagine a world in which they aren’t focused on buying. Titus buys mindlessly, experiencing psychological withdrawal when he can only view a cached page for a sale because his feed is down.