Throughout his novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury clearly elucidates his strong belief that technological advances have adverse effects on society as a whole. He expounds his opinion through a description of a school in the quote, "An hour of TV class four more hours of film-teacher" (29). Ironically, even though technology has advanced greatly, school as an institution, has become the complete opposite of a place of learning and thinking, as perceived today. The use of personification and onomatopoeia in the statement, "they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing- illustrates that everything has become fast paced. It also exemplifies how students are just given facts, but not given an oppurtunity to process or analyze them. The repetition of the word "hour" is significant in conveying Bradbury's attitude because it shows how the students are subjected to long periods of monotonous activity which resulted in a narrow minded, unthinking society. Another way Bradbury expresses his opinion that technological advances unfavorably affects society is in the excerpt "Every hour so many damn things in the sky! Is that why we"re hated so much" (73-4). Bradbury depicts that as great strides have been made in the technological fields, the general population has become addicted to and consumed by technology. Specifically, the use of the word "fun" is describing the people's relationship with technology is noteworthy because it shows how the people are engrossed by material possessions so much so that they think they are having fun with their inanimate belongings. Montag's lack of ability to speak in long, thought-out sentences demonstrates how the over-development of technology has rushed the pace of life to such an extent that people can only think short thoughts. His short, but powerful, accusative questions about technology's effect on society also foreshadows that further advancement of technology could lead to the destruction of society.
