Machine and technology exist for the most part to improve lives and diminish the hardships or discomfort of completing tasks. In “The Machine Stops” Foerster invents a world in which people have delegated all tasks and reduced all interactions to the Machine. Vashti’s thoughts and dialogue demonstrate an ironic contrast between the uneventfulness of her life and the urgency with which they seek to come up with ideas. Meanwhile, anything that might inspire ideas is hurriedly dismissed. While we use machinery to reduce the effort of completing tasks and leave ourselves time to develop ideas, the development of ideas requires interaction with others in a way that the Machine destroyed. The value and importance of machinery and media is not just the interactiveness between the user and the media but the interaction it facilitates with other people. The story is a grim cautionary tale about human dependence on machinery and a statement that connection, communications, and free thought are put at risk by a life of pure comfort and ease. In relation to this class, the story emphasizes the importance of interpersonal interaction and communication through media, rather than mere interaction with media itself.