Feed

Feed is awesome! that's wut I think! Anywayz, the story revolves around a teenage boy and his relationship with a girl with a vastly different world perspective. They live within a futuristic world where technology has merged electronics and telecommunications with the human mind, something which plays a major role in the novel. The book is a dark satire about corporate power, consumerism, information technology, and data mining in society. Their lives revolve around advertising, and the knowledge and will that the Feed not only provides them with information on demand but manipulates their decision-making in realtime.

The story depicts a future in which the Internet has evolved into the "Feednet"; a computer network to which the brains of American citizens are directly connected by means of an implanted computer chip called a "Feed", which about 73 percent of Americans have set in their brain. Privacy has become a thing of the past; Corporations are free to monitor and manipulate citizens' thoughts, people's thoughts are interrupted by the mental equivalent of pop-up ads, sometimes to a debilitating degree, and the government can even subpoena one's memories. The corporations and conglomerates responsible for the feed participate in data mining by monitoring the purchases and interests of those with the feed, and using this information to fit individuals into consumer profiles. People can "M-Chat" one another (a form of evolved Instant Messaging) on closed channels, effectively creating a form of telepathy. In addition, the Feed chip is implanted at such an early age that it actually takes over the running of many brain functions as the child matures. As a result, certain sites on the Feednet allow users to go "In Mal"; deliberately cause their feed chips to malfunction, causing physical and mental sensations similar to some illegal drugs.

The natural environment has also undergone extensive damage; atmospheric conditions no longer allow the natural formation of clouds and the sky is filled with artificial Clouds™ and the ocean has become so acidic that whales are sheathed in plastic coverings. Sexual reproduction is no longer possible. As a result, all women undergo in-vitro fertilization and have their children custom tailored to their liking.

The corporations responsible for the Feed have an immense power in the future America. They run the school system, which is now known as School™. Throughout the book, they appear to hold the true power in America, leaving the president virtually helpless as the Global Alliance, a coalition of countries, threatens to go to war with them.