"The Problem with the I Forgot My Phone Video"
"Disruptions: More Connected, But More Alone"
Final Essay Preparation:
Your introduction (one paragraph), tentative thesis, and an MLA Works Cited page.
One paragraph introduction methods
Using MLA citations in your text
Related Books and Links:
The Myth of Multitasking by Clifford Nass Interview on NPR
The End of Big by Nicco Mele
Present Shock by Douglass Rushkoff
To Save Everything, Click Here and The Net Delusion by Evgeny Morozov
The Overflowing Brain by Torkel Klingberg
Consent of the Networked by Rebecca Mackinna
The Shallows by Nicholas Carr
Writing Assignment:
In a 6-page research paper, not including your Works Cited page, address the following question with an argumentative thesis:
In Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together, does she argue convincingly about the personal destruction resulting from our growing dependence on social media technology or is her argument sodden with Luddite paranoia, one-sided bias, too much reliance on personal anecdotage (as opposed to research), and any other fallacies you see? Or does she convincingly puncture the techno-utopian balloon with her techno-skepticism?
Your guidelines are as follows:
This research paper should present a thesis that is specific, manageable, provable, and contestable—in other words, the thesis should offer a clear position, stand, or opinion that will be proven with research. You should analyze and prove your thesis using examples and quotes from a variety of sources.
You need to research and cite from at least five sources. You must use at least 3 different types of sources.
- At least one source must be from an ECC library database.
- At least one source must be a book, anthology or textbook.
- At least one source must be from a credible website, appropriate for academic use.
- The paper should not over-rely on one main source for most of the information. Rather, it should use multiple sources and synthesize the information found in them.
This paper will be approximately 5-7 pages in length, not including the Works Cited page, which is also required. This means at least 5 full pages of text. The Works Cited page does NOT count towards length requirement.
You must use MLA format for the document, in-text citations, and Works Cited page.
You must integrate quotations and paraphrases using signal phrases and analysis or commentary.
You must sustain your argument, use transitions effectively, and use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Your paper must be logically organized and focused.
Here is an excellent synopsis and book review from The Guardian.
Lexicon:
- Luddite: someone who is afraid of technology because it brings great evils. A Luddite is paranoid and exaggerates the "catastrophe" of change because deep down he fears he's missing out. He suffers from Sour Grapes Syndrome.
- Narcissists: people who have a pathological craving for high esteem and admiration of others at the exclusion of substance, accomplishment, and moral character. Their contradiction is that while they crave the esteem of others, they have nothing but contempt for people. How could people crave the admiration of the very people they despise?
- Online identity or avatar: the pretend self that gradually can become the “real” self, created a delusion in not just the creator of the persona but others who see it, as we see in the case of comic personas who are taken seriously like Stephen Colbert. It turns out some conservatives watched him not knowing he was doing a parody of conservatives.
- Truncated emotion: emoticon
- Technology-driven neediness
- Banalities of real time confused with substance because of dopamine infusion
- Lowered social expectations from social media
- Facebook friend is a “low-risk connection.”
- Cognitive faculty decay, especially in the realm of attention span
- Control paradox: being controlled by the need to control
- Solitude aversion and the crack cocaine-like addiction of smart phones
- Dopamine overload and depression
Study Questions
One. How does technology allow us to fall in love with the idea of life while disdaining the reality of life? “We are lonely yet fearful of intimacy.”
Why are we fearful of intimacy? Because social media is about convenience and control and is antithetical to intimacy.
Intimacy requires the following:
compromise
listening skills
sharing
reciprocity
loss of control
long-term commitment
long-term sacrifices
generally speaking, intimacy requires more effort than a "social media friendship"
We run away from intimacy into a phony cyber world: See page 1.
Consider the avatars from Second Life.
We begin to prefer archetypal forms, in simulated form, which conform to our preconceived ideas about what the object should be rather than reality.
See the museum example on page 3. At Disneyland real creatures were not, people complained, “as real” as the animatronic ones.
In an age dominated by simulation, authenticity becomes the new forbidden, the new taboo. See page 4.
We become bored with one existence and want to move back and forth between our "real" and our virtual existence until the lines become blurred.
To conclude, we fear the loss of control we enjoy in tech life, we fear the give and take and compromise of real intimacy, and we prefer the simulated "real" over the real. These preferences make us more and more alone.
Two. What are the contradictions of a networked life? See page 1. And see page 3. “We romance the robot and and become inseparable from our smartphones.
The robot and the smartphone indulge us, massage our narcissistic side and as a result we don't do well in real relationships, which require compromise and suppression of our Inner Narcissist.
As this happens, we remake ourselves and our relationships with each other through our new intimacy with machines. . . . The network is seductive. But if we are always on, we may deny ourselves the rewards of solitude.”
Also see the “flattened personae” and using “emoticans for feelings” on pages 18 and 19.
Using emoticans to communicate makes us lazy and kills intimacy and soulful expression.
Three. What is the source of Sherry Turkle’s displeasure with the book Love and Sex with Robots?
There is a huge philosophical disagreement here. Are robots, that is to ask is “robot love” part of a healthy evolution or are a robot relationships a sign of our dissolved humanity? See pages 5-7.
We control the robot but we don’t give and take like real humans. Control is not the same as intimacy and empathy. Control is part of a narcissistic character.
In fact, narcissism may be the most brutal byproduct of virtual reality fetishism.
Narcissism, encouraged by social media, is about excessive appetites for adulation and attention of others while having utter disregard for others.
Four. Describe the dependency and panic people have regarding their smartphones. See page 16.
People feel disconnected and anxious and can't live "off the grid." Cell phone addiction impedes development in other areas.
Five. We make our technologies and they make us; they shape us. In what way? That would make a good thesis.
The technologies must indulge us, make us the center of attention and thereby raise our self-regard.
The give us a sense of control.
They give us the illusion of intimacy without responsibility, empathy, and compromise with other humans (the very essential ingredients of real friendship and intimacy).
Technology spares us the possibility for disappointment, rejection, and loss; and we begin to prefer these fake friendships to real ones.
The result of all this technology is the following:
We become fake, we become narcissistic, we become controlling, we become simulation-mongers (over the real) and we become tech addicts and we become partial attention bots.
You either agree with the description or do not. Or perhaps you believe in something in-between.
Here's a question related to the above: Do well-adjusted people react like the above or only addictive personalities?
Or can well-adjusted people, under social media influence, become addicts?
Six. How do smartphones make us cyborgs living in a perpetual adolescence?
See 151 and 152. We live in a “world of continual partial attention.” See page 161.
We’ve all become “pauseable,” meaning people can “pause” us and get back to us when them want to.
Seven. How do distinctions blur between the “real” world and the cyber world? 153. We are “absent but tethered” at the same time. We're in class, but we're not because we're texting a friend.
Eight. What does Pete, and his avatar Rolo, say about Pete’s life? 159. He craves a “life mix,” going in and out of Internet, mixing the two worlds. We can take private party conversation and post it on blogs so we can “appear on a larger virtual stage.” See 162.
Nine. What is the slippery slope of Facebook described on page 160?
We begin with using Facebook to supplement friendship but then eventually Facebook becomes the core source of a weakened friendship and is preferred over spending real time with our friends (perhaps now former friends)
Ten. Does having a Twitter, Facebook, and blog presence, required for many people to appear "current," enhance or detract from the job? See page 165.
Many people feel spread thin. Good luck taking a vacation because your Twitter, Facebook, and blog interaction have to remain current or you could lose business by appearing "inactive."
Eleven. What is the false magic trap of texting? It feels like magic, we read on page 164, that we can text while doing something else so we feel that magic has taken place: time has been added to our busy lives, but in reality we fragment our attention and become the lesser for it.
Twelve. What antisocial behaviors result from smartphone addiction?
No hello, no engagement with parents, no safety rules during driving. See page 164.
Thirteen. What is the "always-on culture" and how does it affect us?
We constantly feel behind, inadequate, anxious, and unable to enjoy solitude and intimacy. There is this fear that if I go off the grid, for even a week or two, I may return irrelevant and forgotten. This is a sort of psychosis.
Fourteen. Why are young people drawn to smartphone culture or a "networked life"?
One, because the Net is something larger than they are and they can become of this Larger Thing.
Two, they feel they are stealing time by multi-tasking.
Three, they can play roles they can't play otherwise because they can control and embellish their online "profile."
Four, being networked gives them a sense of independence from their parents (though parents can keep tabs on them with software).
Lexicon Part II with Review
1. New Solitude: We are mentally absent (partially attentive at best) but tethered to others in a degraded way through the "Network," Twitter, Facebook, texting, etc.
2. Avatar: a created persona that becomes our Network identity. This identity lacks complexity and as such becomes a "flattened personae."
3. New Taboo : Authenticity, the messy real becomes loathed in place of preconceived archetypal forms.
4. emoticon: a pictorial representation of an emotion such as a happy or sad face.
5. New Pseudo-Intimacy: We are massaged and caressed by our Network relationships, which indulge our narcissism and we feel in control of these relationships so we avoid real intimacy,which requires compromise and give and take.
6. Off the Grid: going off the Network and disappearing for a while.
7. Technological Narcissism: Our gadgets make us feel like we're the center of attention and this feeling of being at the center (cynosure) becomes an addiction making us addicted to our Network.
8. Perpetual adolescence: living a life of "continual partial attention" as we multitask from one network to another. We toggle ourselves into adolescent multitasking.
9. Pausable: Anyone can be put on pause as we navigate our Network, which makes us feel supreme and in control. This feeling is valued over real relationships.
10. Life Mix: Navigating between our real and avatar selves.
11. Facebook Slippery Slope
12. Always-On Culture
13. Douglas Rushkoff talks about "present shock," the "diminishment of anything that isn't happening right now--and the onslaught of everything that supposedly is."
14. We are according to Rushkoff slaves to the cult of now, trivial things we put on Facebook and twitter, which have a false relevance. As he writes, "we tend to exist in a distracted present, where forces on the periphery are magnified and those immediately before us are ignored."
15. Rushkoff writes about how meaningful narratives are replaced with "a skewed notion of the real world and the immediate; the Tweet; the status update. What we ared doing at any given moment becomes all-important--which is . . . doomed. For this desperate approach to time is at once flawed and narcissistic."
16. Rushkoff coins the term, "Digiphrenia": "the way our media and technologies encourage us to be in more than one place at the same time."
Benefits of Social Networking and Smartphones
1. You can find people with common interests
2. You can overcome geographical barriers
3. You can access and spread information more easily
4. You can control your image and message (good and bad perhaps)
5. You can use smartphones to retrieve information and as evidence in the event of wrongdoings such as the man who was mistreated by doctors during a colonoscopy.
Thesis Examples (some weak; others strong)
We need to turn off our cell phones and computers and turn on to life.
We need to acknowledge that social media addiction is a disease that afflicts many of us.
Facebook is overrated.
I'm burned out from being on Facebook too much.
While there are obvious benefits from social networking, the empirical evidence so abundantly clear in Sherry Turkle's Alone Together points to a widespread social network-fueled pathology consisting of narcissism, false expectations of others, the distortion of time, the addiction to one's fictional cyber life, and compromised brain function from multi-tasking.
While social media is only about a decade old as of writing this research paper, Turkle makes a convincing case that our connection to social media is self-destructive in many ways, which include __________, __________, ____________, and ______________.
Turkle's diatribe against social media is a failed argument because her data cannot include long-term studies with such a new technology, she focuses on extreme cases, which can be found in anything, she uses too much anecdote rather scientific study, and she fails to counterbalance her claims with the prevailing benefits of social media.
Even though Turkle makes many valuable insights about the deleterious ways social networking affects us, her warning has come too late. Her book should have spent less time diagnosing our inevitable malaise and devoted more pages to the ways social networking can and should be used for our self-interests.
Those who dismiss Turkle as a Luddite offering no reasonable solutions to the problems she describes are misguided in their critique when we consider that ________________, _______________, _______________, and ___________________.
Turkle's pessimism is an exercise in intellectual charlatanism and buffoonery evidenced by her sensationalistic exaggerations of social network "mental diseases," her refusal to acknowledge the vast benefits of social networking, and her bullheaded stubbornness, which compels her to resist inevitable social and technological change.
Turkle's shrill diatribe against social networking is little more than a gloomy cloud of fraudulent brouhaha evidenced by _________, ___________, ___________, and _______________.
Most Common Error Last Essay: Pronoun Shifts and Agreement
We suffer learned helplessness when you feel like everything you do is a failure. A person suffering from helplessness will often have delusions that destroy all their efforts. When one feels helpless, we must exercise the Third Eye so you can see your problems from an objective distance. When a person has the Third Eye, they are able to develop strategies to transcend their sense of recurring futility. Therefore, you can free oneself from your dilemma and helps others with this form of self-empowerment. Let us all take notice, then, that one should cultivate a sense of free-will so we can overcome these crises.
Faulty Pronoun Error Reference
Different Types of Pronoun Errors
McMahon Grammar Exercise: Essential and Nonessential Clauses
Circle the relative clause and indicate if it’s essential with a capital E or nonessential with a capital N. Then use commas where necessary.
One. I’m looking for a sugar substitute that doesn’t have dangerous side effects.
Two. Sugar substitutes which often contain additives can wreak havoc on the digestive and nervous system.
Three. The man who trains in the gym every day for five hours is setting himself up for a serious muscle injury.
Four. Cars that operate on small turbo engines don’t last as long as non-turbo automobiles.
Five. Tuna which contains high amounts of mercury should only be eaten once or twice a week.
Six. The store manager who took your order has been arrested for fraud.
Seven. The store manager Ron Cousins who is now seventy-five years old is contemplating retirement.
Eight. Magnus Mills’ Restraint of Beasts which is my favorite novel was runner up for the Booker Prize.
Nine. Parenthood which is a sort of priesthood for which there is no pay or appreciation raises stress and cortisol levels.
Ten. I need to find a college that specializes in my actuarial math major.
Eleven. UCLA which has a strong actuarial math program is my first choice.
Twelve. My first choice of car is the Lexus which was awarded top overall quality honors from Consumer Reports.
Thirteen. Mangoes which sometimes cause a rash on my lips and chin area are my favorite fruit.
Fourteen. A strange man whom I’ve never known came up to me and offered to give me his brand new Mercedes.
Fifteen. My girlfriend who was showing off her brand new red dress arrived two hours late to the birthday party.
Sixteen. Students who meticulously follow the MLA format rules have a greater chance at success.
Seventeen. The student who tormented himself with the thesis lesson for six hours found himself more confused than before he started.
Eighteen. There are several distinctions between an analytical and argumentative thesis which we need to familiarize ourselves with before we embark on the essay assignment.
Nineteen. The peach that has a worm burrowing through its rotted skin should probably be tossed in the garbage.
Twenty. Peaches, which I love to eat by the bucketful are on sale at the farmer’s market.
Twenty-one. Baseball which used to be America’s pastime is declining in popularity.
Subordination and Coordination (Complex and Compound Sentences)
Complex Sentence
A complex sentence has two clauses. One clause is dependent or subordinate; the other clause is independent, that is to say, the independent clause is the complete sentence.
Examples:
While I was tanning in Hermosa Beach, I noticed the clouds were playing hide and seek.
Because I have a tendency to eat entire pizzas, inhaling them within seconds, I must avoid that fattening food.
Whenever I’m driving my car and I see people texting while driving, I stop my car on the side of the road.
I have to workout every day because I am addicted to exercise-induced dopamine.
I feel overcome with a combination of romantic melancholy and giddy excitement whenever there is a thunderstorm.
We use subordination to show cause and effect. To create subordinate clauses, we must use a subordinate conjunction:
The essential ingredient in a complex sentence is the subordinate conjunction:
after |
once |
until |
I workout too much. I have tenderness in my elbow.
Because I workout too much, I suffer tenderness in my elbow.
My elbow hurts. I’m working out.
Even though my elbow hurts, I’m working out.
We use coordination to show equal rank of ideas. To combine sentences with coordination we use FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so)
The calculus class has been cancelled. We will have to do something else.
The calculus class has been cancelled, so we will have to do something else.
I want more pecan pie. They only have apple pie.
I want more pecan pie, but they only have apple pie.
Using FANBOYS creates compound sentences
Angelo loves to buy a new radio every week, but his wife doesn’t like it.
You have high cholesterol, so you have to take statins.
I am tempted to eat all the rocky road ice cream, yet I will force myself to nibble on carrots and celery.
I want to go to the Middle Eastern restaurant today, and I want to see a movie afterwards.
I really like the comfort of elastic-waist pants, but wearing them makes me feel like an old man.
Both subordination and coordination combine sentences into smoother, clearer sentences.
The following four sentences are made smoother and clearer with the help of subordination:
McMahon felt gluttonous. He inhaled five pizzas. He felt his waist press against his denim waistband in a cruel, unforgiving fashion. He felt an acute ache in his stomach.
Because McMahon felt gluttonous, he inhaled five pizzas upon which he felt his waist press against his denim waistband resulting in an acute stomachache.
Another Example
Joe ate too much heavily salted popcorn. The saltiness made him thirsty. He consumed several gallons of water before bedtime. He was up going to the bathroom all night. He got a bad night’s sleep. He performed terribly during his job interview.
Due to his foolish consumption of salted popcorn, Joe was so thirsty he drank several gallons of water before bedtime, which caused him to go to the bathroom all night, interfering with his night’s sleep and causing him to do terribly on his job interview.
Another Example
Bob dropped his peanut butter sandwich in the tiger’s enclosure. He leaned over the fence to reach for his sandwich. He fell over the fence. A tiger approached Bob. The zookeeper ran between the stupid zoo customer and the wild beast. The zookeeper tore his rotator cuff.
After Bob dropped his peanut butter sandwich in the tiger’s enclosure, he leaned over the fence to recover his sandwich and fell into the enclosure during which time he was approached by a hungry tiger, forcing the nearby zookeeper to run between Bob and wild beast. During the struggle, the zookeeper tore his rotator cuff.
Don’t Do Subordination Overkill
After Bob dropped his peanut butter sandwich in the tiger’s enclosure, he leaned over the fence to recover his sandwich and fell into the enclosure during which time he was approached by a hungry tiger forcing the nearby zookeeper to run between Bob and the wild beast in such a manner that the zookeeper tore his rotator cuff, which resulted in a prolonged disability leave and the loss of his job, a crisis that compelled the zookeeper to file a lawsuit against Bob for financial damages.