Disconnected
Benjamin Odell
9/20/10
English 102
Randi Vaughn
Rhetorical Analysis In her essay “Disconnected,” Lynda Smith makes the point that technology that claims to bring people together is actually doing just the opposite, driving them apart, but her argument is ineffective because she fails to provide concrete evidence of her claim. Very early in the essay she claims she is a technophobe, which only reduces her credibility on the topic. She then continues on with an altogether weak argument on the failures of technology in the world around us. She spends a large portion of the essay speaking from firsthand experience about how technology is made appealing to us through use of advertisement and other techniques, and then quotes statistics, but fails to show how these statistics assist her argument. She paints technologic advances are something to be feared, and that the machines are slowly taking over from the inside. She repeatedly makes the point that technology isn’t something we actually want but that we have been brainwashed by media and advertising. She paints the telecommunications industry as sinister overlords plotting to control you through technology. She repeats her description of their advertising techniques bombarding us with flashy colors and images ad nauseam. One of the weakest points of her essay when looked at is an anecdote of her friend and his experiences with technology. Her friend “Randy” apparently used his cell phone a ludicrous amount, as she claims near constantly. She claims that his cell phone caused him great amounts of stress while failing to state that this stress is caused by the information conveyed through the cell phone rather than by the cell phone itself. She also speaks on how the cell phone caused him to become distanced from his family, which then somehow caused him to use his cell phone more. Although I agree that sometimes cell phones are overused, she attempts to paint them as if they were the root of all evil.
9/20/10
English 102
Randi Vaughn
Rhetorical Analysis In her essay “Disconnected,” Lynda Smith makes the point that technology that claims to bring people together is actually doing just the opposite, driving them apart, but her argument is ineffective because she fails to provide concrete evidence of her claim. Very early in the essay she claims she is a technophobe, which only reduces her credibility on the topic. She then continues on with an altogether weak argument on the failures of technology in the world around us. She spends a large portion of the essay speaking from firsthand experience about how technology is made appealing to us through use of advertisement and other techniques, and then quotes statistics, but fails to show how these statistics assist her argument. She paints technologic advances are something to be feared, and that the machines are slowly taking over from the inside. She repeatedly makes the point that technology isn’t something we actually want but that we have been brainwashed by media and advertising. She paints the telecommunications industry as sinister overlords plotting to control you through technology. She repeats her description of their advertising techniques bombarding us with flashy colors and images ad nauseam. One of the weakest points of her essay when looked at is an anecdote of her friend and his experiences with technology. Her friend “Randy” apparently used his cell phone a ludicrous amount, as she claims near constantly. She claims that his cell phone caused him great amounts of stress while failing to state that this stress is caused by the information conveyed through the cell phone rather than by the cell phone itself. She also speaks on how the cell phone caused him to become distanced from his family, which then somehow caused him to use his cell phone more. Although I agree that sometimes cell phones are overused, she attempts to paint them as if they were the root of all evil.