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Qianchi Yang

Erin Dietel-McLaughlin

First Year Composition

29 September 2010

Technology and Us: What’s The Reflection?

Technology is something that is built by people yet remains mysterious to people themselves.

It is something that serves as a tool but works in a complexity beyond that of tools. They are

applied every day aiming to better our lives. Day after day, people are getting used to the life

based on all kinds of advanced technologies: waking up in the ringing of an electronic alarm

clock, washing up with an electric motored toothbrush, walking straight to the fridge to get a

bottle of skim milk, people start their days surrounded by technology. However, as stated in

Winner’s article “Technological Somnambulism”, we seldom question about our

acquaintance with technologies as they appear repeatedly and repeatedly (Catherine, 646).

Are technologies leading us in the right direction? Or are we overly depended on

technologies that we would probably lose ourselves? The battlefield for this debate has long

been, and will continue to be, in fever. On one side of the battlefield, we have Ellen

DeGeneres, with her article This Is How We Live, representing the critics who warn people of

their dependence on technologies; on the other side, we have Theodora Stites, who claim, in a

very personal way, that technologies build her an asylum. Both articles are persuasive,

enriched with tons of facts and details. However, from my perspective, DeGeneres’ article is

more efficient in touching the audiences.

Ellen DeGeneres is a well-known comedian and actress as well as the host of a talk show. Her
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article, “This is How We Live”, is published in her book The Funny Thing Is…, which is one

of her best-selling books. In this article she put straightforwardly that she is frustrated by all

the technologies. She jokes, in a comedian way, on how modern technology changed her life

in a way she does not wish to see. She believes that many of the inventions do not serve

efficiently or properly. She recalls how she is disturbed by the auto-flush toilets which never

work punctually—either too early or too late. She also believe that some of the inventions do

not make sense, like the moving aisles in the airports—it is so embarrassing and puzzling a

scene that people even need a transportation belt for themselves. Can’t they just walk? “We

are just so lazy,” DeGeneres concludes, “they’re just coming up with what I just don’t think

we need”; “some things that don’t need to be made easier are being made easier.” (Catherine,

589-590)

On the other hand, Stites’ article, “Someone to Watch Over Me”, published on New York

Times, delivers a quite different opinion. Stites is a common person living in a regular life

like everyone’s. She depicts, in a very personal perspective, that her everyday life is “cloaked

in virtual intimacy.” (Stites, “Someone to Watch Over Me”) She emphasizes on how cyber

communications filled her life: tons of accounts to different communities form the broadest to

the narrowest, satisfying her need of intimacy in 360 degrees and offering continuous

attention from others all day long. She gets online even before she gets up. As she comments,

“Online, everyone has bulletproof social armor.”, Stites is thoroughly plunged into the cyber

world. Virtual life, for Stites, is everywhere.

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Both articles work efficiently in persuading their audiences. They work in a similar way, too.

There are two rhetorical strategies that both passages applied, ethos and pathos:

The first strategy is setting up ethos, that is, the credibility of the author. This strategy is, in

essence, to lower the possibility of the authors being challenged or doubted. Usually the

authors will gain credibility by impressing their audiences with their academic achievement.

However, Stites and DeGeneres, who hold few remarkable academic awards, instead achieve

this strategy by appealing for a sense of agreement from their audiences, since in that way

they can be thought as a part of their audiences, and thus they can enjoy a high level of

trustworthiness since they are already accepted. Both articles are filled with imagery of real

life experiences that efficiently raise the audiences’ sympathy. One representative example

will be DeGeneres’ description of the automatic taps. She mocks on a very common scene

that when using the automatic taps, people have to move their hands back and forth

repeatedly under the tap to complete a wash. This is, of course, an absurd scene that the taps

actually disturb people. When DeGeneres makes the funny description, she actually bring

herself a lot closer to her audiences, since they are on the same side laughing at life’s

absurdity. By doing this, DeGeneres can not only draw her reader’s attention, but also reach

an agreement between she and the readers. Another good example would be Stites’

description on how she flip through all her friends’ (and friends of her friends) pages. She

confess that she incessantly scans through all her friends’ posts and pictures to keep them on

track, from morning till night. She cannot live without the updates. As I read through these

sentences, I see familiar scenes unfold in front of me: checking my mails repeatedly, wasting
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time on Facebook and wandering around on the internet. Stites’ personal statement will

strongly recalls others’ of similar experience and thus build up a bridge of communication

between Stites and her readers. The two example descriptions earn acknowledgement and

acceptance of the materials from the readers and immediately bring the readers to a closer

level to the authors. As the authors synchronize with their audiences they become the mental

leader and thus gain trust from readers. “To synchronize with the audiences in order to gain

trust”, this is how the authors set up their ethos.

However, ethos must be strengthened in order to reach its maximum effect. The two passages

strengthen ethos in quite different ways, since their authors are in quite different situation. As

a celebrity, DeGeneres naturally enjoys a certain level of popularity and public leadership.

But to achieve more, she repeatedly creates a joyful and funny atmosphere to reaffirm her

public persona and to make her persona serve for her credibility. DeGeneres leaves a punch

line for every story she tells. But more interestingly, she leaves many first person comments:

in her comments on the packaging of bulbs and batteries she says “What are those packagers

thinking?” (Catherine, p589). These direct and emotional words can strongly stimulate her

readers’ emotion flow that can set up an even stronger connection between she and the

readers. And as the readers laugh, they are in perfectly open status that they might accept

DeGeneres words wholly. Humorous words can smooth the communication between the

author and the audiences, and thus strengthen the communication between them.

The situation of Stites, however, is more difficult. Stites does not hold a high popularity.
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However, she applied an astonishingly effective strategy: to place implicit comparisons that

are spread throughout the article. Statements like “I consistently trade actual human contact

for the more reliable emotional high of smile on…that clog my cellphone every night”, “I

prefer, in short, a world cloaked in virtual intimacy”, “We would never dream of hanging out

in person” (Stites, “Someone to Watch Over Me) (emphases added by Qianchi Yang) and so

on repeatedly paraphrase Stites’ preference on virtual life. As they change in form, be

paraphrased and repeat, they plant Stites’ point of view in their audiences’ mind while

keeping the article smooth. They work on a subconscious level. This is such a mild yet

powerful strategy that makes the article persuasive.

Another rhetorical strategy that is applied by both is the use of pathos, that is, to cite, state or

argue with emotion. The most common form of pathos argument is the reference to real life

experience. And of course, for our two authors, pathos is their ultimate weapon. Both articles

are filled with stories aiming to touch their readers.

DeGeneres’s article strongly relies on pathos. In fact, her pathos substitutes her ethos. The

two strategies cannot stand without each other. Let’s look at the same example of DeGeneres’

comments on packaging: “What are those packagers thinking?” This emotional claim can be

categorized as the use of pathos if we focus mainly on DeGeneres herself not the audiences.

Her emotion will be sarcasm. She is trying to transfer her own emotion to her readers. Her

comment on the useless go-gurt is also interesting: “Was there a big mobility problem with

yogurt before?” (Catherine, 589). The description on the frustrating receptors is amusing:
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“Usually the reception is terrible, and somehow it’s only bad on your side.” (Catherine, 589)

Her humorous groans effectively wake her audiences up. Her observation on all the neglected

controversy in life questions people of their faith in technologies. Are technologies really

helping us? Are we living an easier life with all the complicated machines? As influenced by

DeGeneres’ accurate jokes, the audiences may find the facts and scenes ridiculous.

DeGeneres’ is successful in using her sense of humor, either in setting up her ethos or pathos.

However, it is also her overuse of humor that makes her statements seem exaggerated. For

example, as she describes the frustration she encounters in the restroom, she writes as if she

meets some problem with everything, from toilet paper to taps. If the inventions really bring

that much inconvenience, why on earth can they be widely accepted and applied? Her

imagery of real life experiences may be persuasive yet she herself seems to be overreacted.

This can be a lethal backfire on DeGeneres herself, but fortunately, she stops on the edge of

falling down.

Similar to DeGeneres, Stites relies heavily, or even more heavily on pathos, since she holds a

lower level of ethos than DeGeneres does. Stites is always trying to create an emotional

bonding with her audiences: she presents real life details, asking for agreement or

acknowledgement; she also uses a first-person perspective in order to create a recognized

atmosphere. For example, as she describes “Every morning…I sign in to my Instant

Messenger…I check for new email…and my friends’ blogs”, she arises a strong sense of

familiarity in her audiences’ mind. And also, she captures a very sentimental voice that
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precisely conveys people’s hesitation and addiction on technologies. Stites successfully earns

a feeling of trust from her audiences.

However, Stites even has more strategies to strengthen her use of pathos. Stites also puts in

some psychological analyses at the end of her stories. In her imagery of her virtual socially,

she powerfully address the conclusion that “Online, everyone has bulletproof social armor”;

and as she talks about how she shaped her avatar into a hot girl, she concludes that

“OSTENSIBLY, there are no flaws in this world”. Her comment is so precisely addressed that

it hits her audiences in the heart. Stites’ conclusion directs people to a deeper understanding

of the superficial observation of their life. Stites focuses on the quality of her pathos rather

than quantity and thus makes herself unbeatable.

The two articles are both compelling. However, Stites’ has one major drawback—it never

talks about the future. The virtual network is nice and attractive, at least it seems to be. It

seems like paradise now, but, what about the future? No one knows what technologies will

bring us in 10 or 20 years, just like no one would have expected the Internet would have the

power to interfere an election campaign 20 years ago. Stites’ paradise is based on something

unreliable. Stites failed to answer to the concern of reliability, if she is trying to persuade

people how wonderful virtual life is. Stites’ paradise may seem good, yet it involves a certain

amount of uncertainty. However, DeGeneres’ article, even though addressed in such a

grudging tone, nevertheless points out the problem that we are spoiled by technologies. The

article only serves to warn, not to solve. DeGeneres’ article fulfills its mission, but Stites’
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does not. Therefore, if one of the two articles is to be chosen as textbook materials, I will

strongly recommend DeGeneres’ one, because it not only applied various rhetorical strategies

but also succeeded in delivering a specific point of view. It will definitely be the better choice

for the authors of They say, I say.

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Works cited:

1. DeGeneres, Ellen. “This is How I Live”. Latterall, Catherine. Remix:

Reading+Composing Culture. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin. 2006. Print.

2. Stites, Theodora. “Someone to Watch Over Me.” New York Times. New York Times. 09

July 2006. Web. 09 December 2010.

3. Winner, Langdon. “Technological Somnambulism.” Latterall, Cathering. Remix:

Reading+Composing Culture. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin. 2006. Print.