The Fun They Had

In this science fiction short story, Asimov explores the potential consequences of advanced computer technology for education and the experience of childhood. The author creates a world set in the year 2155; however, despite this advanced year, the story is not overwhelmed with futuristic imagery or technical jargon. He tells the story from 11-year-old Margie’s point of view, a stylistic choice that is appropriate considering the story’s original publication in a children’s newspaper. Furthermore, the futuristic setting contributes to the story’s success with any audience by using simple, accessible language to explore the more complicated topics at hand, including education, technology, childhood, and socialization. Through the use of irony and juxtaposition, Asimov develops the themes of The Consequences of Technological Advancement, Isolation and Loneliness, and Nostalgia for the Past.

The story is based on the following premise: By the year 2155, education has shifted from the public sphere of a school building with other children to the private sphere of the home. Rather than a human teacher or even a parent to instruct them, each student uses a computer called a “mechanical teacher” to give them their lessons and grade their homework. Margie recalls her mother telling her that “each child has to be taught differently” (127), an assumption that indicates a significant paradigm shift in education between the 20th and 22nd centuries. The alleged benefit of this system is that each student’s mechanical teacher can be adapted to that student’s learning style and aptitude rather than the generalized group education preferred by educational models in the story’s past. Because the story is from Margie’s point of view, readers can experience how this model of education directly affects a child from her own subjective perspective. Margie’s voice and concerns are naive, straightforward, and familiar; like many children, she dislikes school, which she finds frustrating and boring, and she is excited by the novelty of the antiquated book her friend Tommy finds in his attic.

The book, with its “yellow and crinkly pages” and “funny” (125) words that don’t change like the words on a computer screen do, is the story’s primary symbol. It represents the preservation of knowledge, inviting the reader to consider fundamental questions about if and why it is important to preserve and access information—in other words, questions about the nature, purpose, and value of education. Asimov confirms that education is the book’s symbolic function by making the book itself about school. In doing so, Asimov also allows the book to function as a plot device that can fill in Margie and Tommy’s knowledge gaps about how education in the story’s past differed from the story’s present. This allows Margie to unconsciously consider her own existential relationship to education as she compares what she learns from Tommy and the book to her own experiences and feelings around school.

The symbolic function of the book also serves as a juxtaposition to the mechanical teacher, the computer that represents everything Margie has ever experienced about education. On a technical level, the book and the mechanical teacher serve nearly identical purposes. Both are inanimate, impersonal objects; both store information; and both are intended for instruction and learning. However, Margie’s feelings about each are extremely polarized, confirming their juxtaposition to one another and prompting the reader to consider what explains the contrast. For Margie, the mechanical teacher is a source of frustration and disappointment. She has no motivation or interest in the information it gives her for its own sake; she associates it with boredom and a lack of freedom. The book, on the other hand, does not carry these associations. Although it is also a source of information, the book itself is novel, filling her with excitement and a sense of possibility.

This contrast confirms Asimov’s primary intentions in writing this short story. Unlike the book, the mechanical teacher offers no incentive for Margie to learn from it. School is a part of her routine over which she has no control and derives no positive reinforcement. Specifically, there is no human element for her to connect to with the mechanical teacher. Margie’s mother is technically at the home during school, but she does not participate in the learning process; it is entirely between Margie and the computer. The book, on the other hand, gives Margie an opportunity to socialize with Tommy and experience a connection with another person. Although Tommy is not particularly nice to her, both children are starved enough for human connection with their peers that they will take whatever socialization is available to them. The mechanical teacher does not meet their needs for socialization, but the book does by giving them an excuse to do something together. Margie does not see the book as a tool of education or learning, even though this is exactly what it is. Instead, the book is an opportunity for friendship and excitement, the very things she yearns for as she daydreams about “the fun they must have had” (127) at school in the old days.

Whereas she hates doing schoolwork, Margie finds that she actually “wanted to read about those funny schools” (127) and tries to solicit a promise from Tommy to do even more reading together. This further confirms that her hatred of school is not an inherent dislike of learning. Rather, it is that her need for human connection, socialization, and having peers to relate to and support one another are not being met. While automated, individualized learning may be beneficial from an educational stance, it is insufficient for meeting the complex emotional and social needs that are universal to all people, including children. The mechanical teacher cannot meet these needs for Margie or any other human child, and it is only natural that Margie feels frustrated and isolated by her world. With this simple, brief exploration into the effects of remote, automated education on one child, Asimov broaches the much larger question of how humans can meet their emotional and social needs in a technologically advancing world that increasingly minimizes those priorities in favor of hard data, speed, and efficiency. The author’s implication in “The Fun They Had” is that, without a balance, neither can fully succeed.