Are TV parlours like Social Networking? YES!

The TV parlours of Montag’s wife are similar to social networks today. They are also similar to technology in general. The TV parlour completely took over Mildred’s life. All of her conversations with friends revolved around different programs shown on the big, wall sized televisions. She called the people in the televisions her ‘family’. She felt a sense of connectedness with the television and the characters in it. The TVs literally surrounded her. This is very similar to social networks today. Like the televisions of Montag’s parlour, social networking is all around us. It envelopes us and sucks us in. People, like Mildred, have a sense of connectedness though these social networks. Personally that’s how I know what people are doing. I go on Facebook and see that my friends from home are going to Foxwoods next weekend. I feel that Facebook keeps me connected. It keeps me connected to people I know as well as people I don't know, similar to Mildred being connected to her 'family'.



Mildred and her friends feel lost with out the televisions. This is how me and many of my friends feel without technology and social networking sites. When Montag pulled the television plug when Mildred had friends over it was like they didn’t know what to do. Similarly, every time I turn my computer on I automatically go to Facebook even if I mean to go to the Drew website. On a larger scale, I, as well as many other people, wouldn’t know what to do without their cell phones and other technology.
Lastly, Mildred wants more. The Montags have three television walls in their parlour, but she wants four. She completely shakes off the fact that the fourth wall would cost her husband a third of his yearly pay. Similarly we constantly want more. We want new and improved technology and when we ask for them we often don’t realize how much they cost. Mildred yearned for this fourth television only two months after they got the third. We too get sick of things fast and desire upgrades. The demand for new and better things is a strong force behind technological advances.


Although Mildred and her friends represent the majority of our society today, paralleling the parlour televisions to social networking and technology, there are always people that will be opposed to such things. In today’s culture they are the people who refrain from social networking. They are those few college students who don’t have a Facebook account. They are the people who don’t get blackberrys or maybe even cell phones in general. In Fahrenheit 451 the people who are opposed to the technological movement and want to live in the old ways of books and knowledge are the people that Guy Montag found along the river after escaping the police.


Overall, the TV parlours of the book are very symbolic and representative of social networking and technology today. It is the main focus of many people's lives but there are still people who are opposed to technology in ways such as the people along the river in the book.