Computers in film are a good way to gauge the role of technology in our lives, and not surprisingly, that role is growing rapidly, reports The Globe and Mail.

In the Sixties and Seventies, characters like Hal, the evil supercomputer in 2001: A Space Odyssey served as the personification of concerns over inroads in artificial intelligence.
In the Eighties, films like War Games, where a hacker almost starts nuclear war, and Tron, where a game designer gets sucked into his own creation, marked a growing fascination with computer games.

Today, computers are fully integrated into many Hollywood creations. Shows like 24 and CSI rely heavily on computers, where the good guys' edge in technology puts them ahead.

But is society getting too hooked on computers?

Film studies professor Bill Beard looked at how dependent we've become on sites like Facebook for social life and suggested today's reality veers little from films like the Matrix, where a hacker discovers we are all living in a giant program.