The increasing prevalence of digital technology has created widespread debate of the implications of excessive use of mobile phones. Since being introduced into society, mobile phones have received much media attention as considerable debates arise in questioning the supposed dangers of overusing them. In conjunction with research carried out by Brainhealth research project, Dr. Bland’s feature article “Too much information” argues that the overexposure of mobile phones can put Australians at the risk of ‘brain burnout.’ Accompanied by a cartoon, the article seeks to make Australians more aware of the dangers posed mobile phones. The author employs a confident but balanced tone to stress to his audience about the risks associated with overexposure of mobile phones. Bland use of inclusive language such as “our”,” we” and “I” allow him to create a sense of community between his audience and himself.
Thus the main idea expressed in the book is the significant damage that the digital age has done to the intellectual growth of the adolescent group of the society, and the seemingly wide gap that the tools have created between adults and adolescents (Baulein lecture). The existence of numerous websites (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Skype, and other dating sites) on the Internet, and the use of cell phones have made it possible for the youth to build a social wall around them, which completely isolates them from the adult society, making adult supervision over teenagers impossible. Most people under the age of thirty have no growing knowledge because they only do what their peers do, and are not ready to learn new and challenging ideas and skills outside their circles (Baurlein lecture). They would rather read comic books and magazines than read newspapers or watch the news (12). Bauerlein expresses his concern about this situation, as he says, “It isn’t enough to say that these young people are uninterested in world realities.
Kirn’s article, “The Autumn of the Multitaskers” starts with a story of multitasking gone bad. Just like many others today, he let his cell phone picture message come before paying attention to the road and came face to face with a near death experience. This connects with what Matt Richtel says in his article, “Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price.” He states, “While many people say multitasking makes them more productive, research shows otherwise. Heavy multitaskers actually have more trouble focusing and shutting out irrelevant information, scientists say, and they experience more stress.” To take a case in point, if Kirn wasn’t so worried about his cell phone, his “technology,” then he would have been stayed on the highway – far away from the post and grass. Technology plays a huge part in us committing the multitasking crime.
Also digital culture and social media had made they forgot about the reality and live in a virtual life. “The Dumbest Generation” that wrote by Mark Bauerlein is one example. Bauerlein believes that digital culture and social media had cut young adults away from history, civic, literature, and fine arts. However, I have the opposite opinion; believe that digital culture actually made young adults smarter in different ways. There are many famous people including Bauerlein himself were having an argument with another group of people on whether digital culture is an advantage or not.
Lashawnda Frazier English 100 In Kimberly Walker article, entitled “How social media made us Narcissists”, she states “we’re all guilty, it seems like social media has pushed us all into steamy love affairs with ourselves.” According to Carol Craig, a social scientist and chief executive of the Centre for confidence, “young people in Britain are taking cue from alleged wide spread arrogance in the U.S.” He also states, “The way that children are being educated is focusing more and more on
Cell phones have went from being devices of contact to devices of mass communication, secrets, and the collection of common data. The use of the cell phone was used to illustrate the effects of technology on a personal level. This was illustrated by the increased social interactions by the owner of the café after acquisition of the mobile phone. This includes the interactions with the dead man’s mother, mistress, his illegal trade in body parts and his role as a husband. Thus, the cell phone could be termed as the lifeline of majority of people such as the dead man, to whom the cell phone was a lifeline for his interactions with the mistress as well as the lifeline in terms of his illegal operations as seller of illegal body parts.
He has represented the Internet as the answer to all of society's worries. In both these articles both writers provide very convincing evidence weather on how the Internet is making us more brilliant or is it turning us brainless. In Nicholas Carr’s Article “Does the Internet Make You Dumber?” he argues the fact that the Internet indeed does make you “dumber,” almost scaring its reader to stay away from web usage. He takes a more scientific approach talking about how the Internet allows us to have a mass amount of information at any time, but with all that info comes distractions. He goes on about how those distractions hurt our mental thinking.
Facebook is the gun that enables us to fire virtual bullets at all of the people that we despise, but every so often we take a shell in return. This shell can put a ripple in our psychological state which has us asking ourselves, I am I as happy as my friends ? “ The real danger with Facebook is not that it allows us to isolate ourselves, but that by mixing our appetite for isolation with our vanity, it threatens to alter the very nature of solitude” (Marche) . People should have their moments of solitude in this crazy stressful life; Sadly facebook acts as a weapon that destroy our much needed seclusion. In today’s generation having a face book ties you to being part of the pop culture phenomenon, without having one you receive the feeling that you are missing out on the virtual connection.
Rhetorical Analysis: “Jeremy” Rhetoric appeals are used for impacting society. Since the start of the Music Television Channel (MTV), music videos have become a popular means of employing rhetoric to capture, as well as maintain the audience’s attention. After Pearl Jam lead vocalist, Eddie Vedder, read an article printed in a newspaper he sat down and wrote the lyrics to the song, “Jeremy”. This particular article was about a 16 year old boy from Richardson, Texas, who committed suicide. The intentions of this song is to educate the audience, while also describing factual details in the order of which they occurred.
Many people are addicted to texting and social networking like Facebook. Sherry Turkle, in her essay “Alone Together”, argues that the machine-mediated relationships might cause many problems between people. And more and more people are “playing themselves” online with different identities. People are even more alone after using modern technology. Kenji Yoshino, in his essay “Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights”, asserts that everyone covers, and people cover in order to be accepted by the mainstream.