In M. T. Anderson's fictional world (set a century or two into the future), everyone is connected by an internet-like web called "the feed". The main difference - "the feed" is an integral part of your body. Imagine having a wikipedia inside your brain. "Telepathic" communication with everyone who is currently online. (the "currently online" part refers to basically everyone who is awake and not heavily "damaged"). People talk less and less, and language begins to degrade. Written word is almost non-existent. Children no longer need to learn (as we know it today) in schools - not even how to read.
It’s more now, it’s not so much about the educational stuff but more regarding the fact that everything that goes on, goes on on the feed. All of the feedcasts and the instant news, that’s on there, so there’s all the entertainment ... like their favorite feedcast, this show called "Oh? Wow! Thing!", which has all these kids like us who do stuff but get all pouty, which is what the girls go crazy for, the poutiness.
But the braggest thing about the feed, the thing that made it really big, is that it knows everything you want and hope for, sometimes before you even know what those things are. It can tell you how to get them, and help you make buying decisions that are hard. Everything we think and feel is taken in by the corporations, mainly by data ones like Feedlink and OnFeed and American Feedware, and they make a special profile, one that’s keyed just to you, and then they give it to their branch companies, or other companies buy them, and they can get to know what it is we need, so all you have to do is want something and there’s a chance it will be yours.
