blog 2

I chose How America Is Dumbing Down the Next Generation because I can relate to what Jacqueline Leo, from the Huffington Post, is expressing in this article. She goes on and explains how technology is taking away from the basic skills that we, as people, develop and even says that we are becoming incompetent. She uses examples of smart cars driving themselves, smart dishwashers that can control their own settings based on what and how much is put in it, and even apps for phones that can do just about anything.  All the things that I learned growing up, such as arithmetic, basic grammar, cooking, and cleaning are addressed. I do agree with her that the advancement in technology is “giving us a delusion that we’re better at things than we really are” because we rely on things more than we do ourselves. We should take breaks and go back to a “primitive” form of life for a while.

Rhetorical Strategies:

Exaggeration:  I feel she was giving more to the example of the technology in a car when she compared it to an airplane’s when she said, “It probably has some version of the technology used in airplanes, as in "pull up, pull up" when you about to slam into a mountain.”

Analogy: She uses a jigsaw puzzle as a description for a dishwasher when she said “So I no longer need to think of the dishwasher as a giant jigsaw puzzle where every piece fits.”

Structure: In her opening paragraph she mentions a few items, but she breaks down each related item into it’s own paragraph. This makes for ease of reading and a better “flow” to the writing.

Sarcasm:  When she says, “And if you do regress to baby status, your parents can lull you to sleep with a terrific bedtime story, courtesy of a "create your own fairy tale app" she’s taking a shot at new phones and how the new apps can do just about anything for you.

Tone: Throughout the article she seems to be upset that, through the advancements of technology, people are losing their basic skills because they are depending on things.  I felt a real negative vibe while reading this.