What is the theme of "The Pedestrian" by Ray Bradbury?

"The Pedestrian" is a futuristic story about the threat of the then-new medium of television to human consciousness and human society. The protagonist is taking a walk in the evening, which is what people all over the country used to do. They would stop and chat with neighbors who were sitting on their front porches and thereby maintain a sense of community. In the time frame shown in "The Pedestrian" everybody except for the protagonist has become conditioned to stay indoors watching television shows. They never see nature anymore except for pictures of nature on their television screens. They are isolated from the world, except for the members of their own families--and the members of the families are isolated from one another because they are hypnotized by what they are staring at on the television screens. The pedestrian looks very suspicious because he is walking around in the dark. The robot car mistakes him for a possible burglar. After a grilling by a mechanical voice, he is taken off for psychiatric observation. If he isn't a burglar, then he must be some kind of a psycho to be walking around looking at things when he can see plenty of things on television in his own home.

"The Pedestrian" was published in 1951, in the very early days of black-and-white television, but Bradbury set the story about one hundred years ahead to the year 2053. This was what he thought was going to happen. He was wrong. Television, like so many other things, has proved to be a mixed blessing. It has been adopted into American homes and provided information and entertainment without turning people--at least most people--into zombies. It is not a monster. It has been mostly good for children--and children, of course, love it. It is a real blessing for people confined to their homes or to hospital beds.

Ray Bradbury was a freelance writer whose income derived from the print medium, from magazines and books. Naturally he felt threatened by a medium that competed with magazines and books. (Mark Twain once wrote: "Tell me where a man gets his corn pone, and I'll tell you where he gets his 'pions.") Perhaps Bradbury was not being entirely truthful in his vision of the world of 2053. He may have been trying to frighten people for an ulterior motive. He has a strong tendency to exaggerate. Sometimes he seems less imaginative than zany. In another work defending the printed word, Fahrenheit 451, he creates a fire department that spends most of its time burning books! In other words, it is a fire department that sets fires instead of putting them out.