The Expansion and Consequences of Technology
Vu Nguyen
Dr. Boeck
RWS 200
April 12, 2017
The Expansion and Consequences of Technology
In a statistic about the U.S population with a social media profile from 2008-2017, 81 percent of U.S Americans had a social media profile, this statistic shows how the internet and technology impact American’s lives in the new century. In the essay, “Our Future Selves”, Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen claim the advantages of technology will help increased efficiency of medicine, education and quality of life in the next few decades. They also argue these connections will open more opportunities for education and economically. However, it is more of an advantage for wealthy people than poor, because the more money you spend the more benefits you receive in high technologies. Schmidt and Cohen essay can be used as a lens to examine Sherry Turkle’s essay, “Growing Up Tethered”, and Danah Boyd’s essay, “Inequality: Can Social Media Resolve Social Division?”. In Turkle’s essay, she claims that attachment in technology of teenagers are caused by independency and separating from their parents, and concerns of technology may affect to the emotional of teenager. In other hand, Boyd’s essay argues that the expansion and development of social media is causing reinforcement and expanding segregation and division classes. Both Turkle’s arguments and Boyd’s argument are weaken Schmidt and Cohen’s argument because it seems like against the development of technology rather than support it.
The more of technology expands, the more it will affect to the younger generations in the future. Sherry Turkle uses the term “tethered” to argue that teenagers today are tied with their phones and neglect danger around them. She starts off her essay by describing a familiar problem of teenagers texting while driving. Her claim convinces the audience by her examination of on ten seniors in Cranston School and approaching their quotes directly to her essay, according to Marilyn “I keep sound on when I drive. When I a text come in, I have to look. No matter what.” (236). Turkle also uses testimonial and quotes directly in many teenagers to assert that technology is causing changes in teenager emotion and brings up distress. She demonstrates it by giving an example of Julia’s emotion when she texts with her friend and does not get response from them, Julia said “I get mad. Even if I e-mail someone, I want the response, like, right away. I want them to be, like, right there answering me. And sometimes I’m like, ‘Uh! Why can’t you just answer me?’…” (240). By using extremely emotional examples from teenagers, it makes Turkle’s essay more reliable to readers and by showing teenager testimonial her essay more convinces to audience. Moreover, she uses pathos and logos appeals to warning the negative affect of technology impact to younger generation.
People used to believe that the explosion of new technology is somewhat of a solution to end social division, but somehow, it has become worse. In her essay, Boyd’s argues that the outbreak of social media is a cause of tension in race and social classes. She asserts her claim by first giving the example of segregation, then providing the facts of racist in technology and demonstrating the expansion of racist in social media. For example, she starts off her essay by emphasizing the topic of segregation and division classes affect to many cultures in Los Angeles. She uses the real stories of Keke, a black sixteen-year-old and her brother who had been killed because of gang culture in order to make more advantage for her essay by using pathos appeals to the mourning of the readers. According to KeKe described in sad tone: “We can’t have a party without somebody being a Blood or somebody being a Crip and then they shooting. Then we can’t go to my friend’s house because it’s on the wrong side of [the street]. You know what I’m saying? It’s the Mexican side.” (304) She also uses examples of many digital technologies such as Microsoft’s Kinetic, Twitter, MySpace or Facebook in order to show the heavy of racial divide in society. In additional, she uses YouTube as a tool to demonstrate her claim, she provides an example of Alexandra Wallace whose racism complaints about Asian people who talk on their cell phone in library, then posted it on YouTube under the title “Asian in Library”. It brings back a violent wave of racism from other side as one of her professor explained “She made a big mistake and she know it, but they responded with greater levels of intolerance.” (310). Overall, Boyd’s essay was very successful because she used many strategies and evidence to support her claim. Also, she uses an angry tone to call attention of stopping segregation and the division classes either online or offline.