What About Withdrawal?
Speak, by Louisa Hall explores multiple stories that all connect through overarching themes. In one particular story, young girls are beginning to freeze, or rather “paralyze”, after their babybots are taken away from them. These youngs girls practically grew up right alongside their babybots and found them to be the key to their comfort. For example, one girl named Gaby discussed how she brought her babybot to school with her and would show her around. She stated that she never really interacted with her classmates because she had her babybot (Hall 94). The details regarding the relationship between babybots and these young girls made me ponder the idea that these babybots possibly signify something deeper - something that connects to present-day life. Are these babybots synonymous to our smartphones?
When I first read about the young girls freezing and not being able to talk, I thought it was ridiculous. But then I thought, maybe the replacement babybots do have toxins in them as Gaby suggested. Maybe those that rolled out the new babybots knew they were “poisonous” and wanted to rid the Earth of the young girls that relied on babybots as they were no longer fit for regular life. I also thought maybe, just maybe, these children aren’t freezing. Perhaps they simply don’t know what else to do since they practically lived through their interactions with their babybot. As Gaby said after losing her babybot, “we were totally lost” (Hall 95). Perhaps these young girls are just confused.
One way or another, we’ve all seen someone extremely dependant on technology. In my personal life, I have a five-year-old cousin that grew up with his iPad. If he cried, he was handed his iPad; If he was bored, he was handed his iPad. There was a period in time that he accidentally broke his iPad and my aunt sent it away for a few days to get fixed. During this period, he seemed to be a zombie. He didn’t want to play with his toys or talk to the family. He only wanted his iPad. This made me reflect back on this story in Speak and cause me to believe that these girls aren’t actually freezing, they’re just experiencing withdrawal symptoms and don’t know what else to do but sit and stare. However, I have yet to finish this novel so my predictions could be extremely off. These are simply my thoughts while reading in between the lines and connecting it to my own observations and ideas. What do you think? Are the babybots synonymous to our smartphones?