"Individuals are acquiring more control over their lives, their minds and their bodies, even their genes, thanks to the transformations in medicine, communications, transportation and industry Technology has the potential to increase individual freedom and strengthen community." The question of whether or not the Industrial Revolution was a positive influence on society or negative is the same as asking which has more influence on a person- heredity or the environment in which they grew up in. No, the Industrial Revolution did not drive people to war, make people lose faith in their religion, become infected with diseases, or even cause the poverty in our own backyards; rather, the Industrial Revolution gave people a greater opportunity to be able to create their own problems and ignore the better councils of yesteryear. Through their own devices, people have taken the knowledge learned from the Industrial Revolution and defiled it with media, greed, and the stratification of industrial societies, thereby creating the problems in today's society.
The Industrial Revolution gave society greater technology to, say for instance, communicate with. The mass media is so broad- newspapers, television shows, the internet, television commercials, radio, movies, books, magazines, billboards, and even telemarketers via the telephone. These days it is so easy for ideas and thoughts to diffuse through a nation at speeds unheard of before the Industrial Revolution. From these advancements, our culture is taught what acceptable behavior is, what to wear, and what to watch, what reading level our children should be at, and so forth. This media can also deteriorate the standards set forth by our former fathers. Before we had such technology, there was not so much violence, immodest dressing, a decline in religion attendance, or such poverty and filth. To say that the media is one hundred percent responsible for our society's corruptions is not completely accurate, however.