The Matrix Essay

The popular culture is a highly technological culture. In fact, it is hardly possible to imagine the modern world without computers, mobile phones, internet and other technologies which people take for granted today. At the same time, people are concerned with the impact of technologies on their life to the extent that the idea of the rise of machines or technologies running of human control is widely-spread in the modern pop culture. In this respect, the movie “Matrix” reveals the problem of the technologies running out of human control and the struggle of people to regain independence of machines and control over them. In such a way, the movie focuses on one of the major concerns of the pop culture ”“ technology and its impact on humans.

In actuality, the film conveys the story of the struggle of the main character, Neo, against machines which have established total control over people and use people as generators of energy, which maintains functioning of machines. At the same time, the film shows a different view on technologies running of human control compared to many other films. “The Matrix” shows machines that created the virtual world in which humans live, being unconscious of the fact that they are living not a real life. Such a view on the life of the future society reveals the growing concerns of people about the impact of the virtual world on their life. Even though people have created this world themselves, they proved to be unable to take the full control over this world. For instance, the emergence of virtual communities and social networks in Internet may be viewed as precursors of the world described in “The Matrix” the difference is that, in the film, people have lost the ability to perceive the difference between the real and virtual world and shift toward the virtual world entirely.

However, today, many people, especially the youth, are inclined to shift toward the virtual world too. For instance, they spend a larger part of their day in their virtual world and they have little time to communicate with their family, friends in the real life. Moreover, many people start living a different life in the virtual world, where they create a new image, a new self. Obviously, people, who attempt to escape from the real world in the virtual world have significant psychological problems because the virtual world and communication via Internet, for instance, can never substitute the real communication with real people, whereas in Internet people are communicating with unknown people, whose personality may be entirely fake, being a product of one’s vision of his or her self.

In such a context, the movie “Matrix” can be viewed as a warning to the modern society because people may lose control over technologies. In fact, technologies progress so rapidly that people need to adapt to changes fast. However, they are not always to assess adequately effects of such changes on their life. As a result, they may get lost in the virtual world as characters of “The Matrix” and technologies will run out of their control as the movie warns. Even today, people cannot live without modern technologies that makes the main message of the movie particularly noteworthy. Thus, people should reconsider the impact of technologies on their life, whereas the popular culture is the culture dependent on and created by high technologies.