Back to SSTLS and our society today

     When I first started reading Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart I couldn’t help but wonder what time period this story was set in.  There are many similarities and differences to our society today and in the story.  After getting more into the story I felt that it was more of a future of our society today which many of us agreed on but just how far into the future could be debated.  I think that our society today is similar in the fact that many of us rely on technology which can be seen as positive and negative.  In a positive way it may keep us connected to those people we may not see on a regular basis.  It may also help us to find people who we haven't had contact with and build closer relationships with those people.  However, on the other hand many teens today don’t know how to communicate as well face to face with someone rather than sending a message in a text.  Many relationships and conversations now take place over social media which loses a more intimate connection with someone.  This also take away from a person’s reaction when talking to them on social media you can not see how they react to something that is said.  They also have more time to think about what they are going to say which could make their response not fully genuine.  I do believe that as time goes on we will become more technologically advanced.  However, I don't think it will become like Super Sad True Love Story at least not in our life time.  

     This also got me thinking about the subject of immortality and the discussion that we had on this topic in class.  I have thought about this topic before but not as in depth as we had talked about it.  I think it is really interesting to think about and that are class was split half said that wanted to live forever and half said they would rather not.  I personally don't think I would like to live forever.  I think it would take away the importance of life and living every day to the fullest.  I think that people would become very lazy and not want to do anything which we also talked about.  Old people in the story are seen pretty much as worthless and looked down on where as the younger generation is admired.  This has become popular in many different stories and becoming the focus of study.  In the story books are a thing of the past and Lenny is made fun of for still having a large collection.  The technology takes over the reading and writing for them.  Euince is almost seen as an illiterate character because she can not read full sentences.  In our culture today books are still popular.  People still enjoy sitting down and having the actual hard copy in front of them to read.  I think that it is important to remember that while we will continue to make advances in technology we continue to be literate human beings.