Recently I had the chance to re-watch the movie Wall-E. I haven’t seen this movie in many years, so there were several parts that I had forgotten. One thing that stood out to me this time was how pretty much everything is run by one big mega-corporation. This corporation has essentially convinced all of the humans to follow all of their advice, such as the scene where they announce, “Try blue! It’s the new red,” and everyone instantly pushes a button that changes their outfit color from red to blue. Part of this phenomenon appears to be due to the fact that all of the humans are so engrossed with their devices that they no longer pay attention to their surroundings, so if they are told of a new fad (even if it isn’t really a fad yet), they just mindlessly go along with it. The particular lifestyle that the humans are living reminds me of how people respond to social media. Social media has the power to connect large groups of people–and indeed the people on the spaceship are very connected. However social media also tends to disconnect people from their environment. In the movie, people are constantly using technology to communicate with their friends, even if they are right next to each other. As a result they do not notice what is around them, such as the woman who failed to realize that there was a large swimming pool on the spaceship that she had spent her entire life on.