Revelations were abuzz during the screening of the film Connected: An Autoblogography about Love, Death, and Technology at the Santa Rosa Junior College Petaluma campus Monday.

The director of Connected, filmmaker Tiffany Shlain, presented her 60-minute film to a medium sized group of both students and instructors at the Ellis Auditorium at 6 p.m. and participated in a question and answer session following the film.

The film covered topics ranging from the Big Bang Theory and the alphabet to chain reactions of events and society’s interdependence on technology; plus the incorporation of the life and death of Shlain’s father into all of these topics.

Shlain is founder of the Webby Awards and co-founder of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences.

Her films have received 50 awards and include Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness and The Tribe, which explores American Jewish identity through the history of the Barbie doll. Connected is Shlain’s eighth film.

Following the screening of Connected, Shlain was given a round of applause by the enthused audience.

Shlain proceeded to answer questions from the audience while starting a discussion about the four-year production of her film.

“At the time, my father was dying and…All I could think about was my dad and losing connection with him. So I was sitting in the editing room thinking that I’m making a film about connectedness and I’m not exploring emotional connection. So then it took another two years to weave that in.”

Shlain also spoke about the breaks from technology she and her family routinely take.

“Every Friday night, we light the candles and we turn off every screen in the house for 24 hours. You should all try it. It’s really been this huge shift in my life. And then by Saturday afternoon we’re back online and we re-appreciate technology in a whole other way.”

Technology and connectedness were second nature to Shlain when she was growing up and she believes it is now the same for everyone, saying, “It is us. We’ve created these tools. These are extensions of us…We wanted to connect so we invented these computers. We are technology.”

To see more about how the brain is connected to technology, Shlain recommended her latest film, Brain Power: From Synapses to Hyperlinks.

Brain Power is both a 10-minute film and a TED book. The film will be shown at The California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco Nov. 8.