If you had to pick ONE Stephen King Book...
- Thread starter Cheffie1983
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I'm going with that one as well. Pretty soon just about everything will be operating via such technologies. Not just phones but planes, cars, trains, hospitals, power. Imagine the potential harms if your pilotless plane is taken over by hackers. I've read stories about people with baby monitors hearing people talking to their kids or watching them through them. Creepy stuff. We are just seeing the tip of the iceberg on the potential privacy implications when it is possible to monitor just about every transaction and communication any individual makes. The marketing implications are enoromous.
I would suspect a lot of people felt the same way when the telephone was invented and eventually marketed for household use. Each generation and each new Era brings with it a slew of problems along with its benefits. It's all part of the price we pay.
Right, but to some extent that is like comparing the invention of the firecracker to a hydrogen bomb by claiming they both have the capability to do harm. There are certainly greater efficiencies and benefits in using new technologies but the risks are going to be profound. It will be putting all our eggs in one basket in a way that has never been done before. If the government can't even protect itself from hacking, how safe are you going to feel when some teenager might have the capability to shut down the power in major cities, crash planes etc? It is a profound emerging risk. But to get back to Cell (and put the horrible movie version out of my mind!) there are other obvious cultural implications that you see already with everyone walking around "zombie" like with their mobile devices. Most kids I know would spend every waking minute on them if given the opportunity. Addictive.
The Stand is my personal favorite, and yes it has all aspects of life. But Carrie just speaks to me in a personal way.
Good one. We are so attached to our phones. It's a scary thought.
After all of these great responses, I'm beginning to hate my answer. 
I successfully deactivated my Facebook account- I'd love to be reading but the current "scary thought" drones on about internet access,blah blah blah, Isis. What if Carrie took a page from my favorite book, dog eared the corner, slammed it shut, and threw it at the tv? Would it inadvertently hit the remote causing a chain reaction - or can you not do that on television?
Neesy
#1 fan (Annie Wilkes cousin) 1st cousin Mom's side
I forgot my cell phone at home this morning in my rush to get out of the house. Weirdly I found I did not miss it.And some 55 year olds as well!
It is easy to get so used to having it with you, that it feels wrong to not have one around
At least you didn't hear "No, I've never read it. What was it called, The Thread?"After all of these great responses, I'm beginning to hate my answer.
I've forgotten mine and I find I do miss it though I can live without it for that day.
That said (and what follows is not directed at you Neesy; it's just a staement) I do too many things now that are connected to either e-mail or text (forget the actual phone part of the phone; I barely use it myself). And not frivolous things. Without texting, it would make living across the country from my husband's family a real chore these days since my FIL passed away. We are able to instantly contact my BIL whenever we need to if concerned about the MIL. An that is just one example.
Again, I will make an analogy to the home telephone/landline. Looking at this now, we think "that wasn't such a big thing" but imagine what it was like for people to be able to speak with someone in an emergency or a relative who they hadn't seen it quite some time. Up until then they had to depend on ways which took precious time. By the time I was born (1961) if one did not have a private line in the house (in the NYC metro area) others wondered how they got through the day.
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I think the reaction would end up being totally unbelievable and off the wall...like The Final Destination movies.
Maybe the batteries explode in the remote, splashing battery acid all over. It also causes the tv to fall on the dogs tail, opening its mouth to cry, and ingesting the acid. No more dog...
I vote for Carrie based on the reasoning of others. In my mind the story from Bazaar about the guy getting a battery for his motorcycle pops up as a good example as well.
The Stand. Think about how many flu epidemics we've had since the SARs outbreak in 2003. However, what I really like about the book is that it perfectly illustrates just how damn FRAGILE our global system of "order" is, how false our sense of security, how we pretend to be far more evolved than other species on the planet but it might really be all a sham; how just one really bad event will turn the majority of humanity into victims of their primitive instincts: fear, survival, the propensity for violence.
Those are the best universal themes The Stand contains. However, many people lose interest for the second part. Personally, I like to read it again every once in a while not just for the obvious trips down memory lane (no pun intended) but for the thrill of reading an immersive book. Note the symbolism in the details: Harold Lauder and his reaction to Fran's rejection, trash's mantra, and my personal favorite, the white shroud Franny used to wrap her deceased father. This was an effort for them, think about
dragging his body down stairs with Harold, burying it in the garden, and the subsequent homage to his memory during the simultaneous events happening in the book.
I'm not familiar with This.
When was it published? I'm not sure if he will publish a book with an ambiguous pronoun for a title again. Can you imagine
collectively, "this again"?