| Describe your overall ability to pay attention when it comes to school work (<100 words) On a scale of 1 – 10, indicate how addicted you are to you phones |
| My ability to pay attention on schoolwork is heavily dependent on my environment. When I am at home, I find it harder to concentrate because there are more distractions easily accessible to me. I am minutes away from my bed, but at the same time I am minutes away from the TV. As would rate my phone addiction as an 8, and often I find myself on my phone when I am not doing work. I find it easier to concentrate on my work while at the library because seeing other people working makes me feel motivated to work. |
| While reading “My Distraction Sickness” please note how long it takes you to get through the piece (Google says it’s a 45 min read); also, count the number of times you get distracted (for whatever reason) and tally them at the end. |
| It took me 72 minutes to get through the piece, and I got distracted about 17 times. |
| Describe the tone of all three articles, how do they differ? (<100 words) |
| Although all the articles focus on distraction, they all demonstrate a different tone. “The Distracted Student Mind” issues a more formal tone and this is primarily because its main goal is to have credible sounding resolutions to distraction by providing facts and studies made about technological distraction. As for “My Distraction Sickness” there seems to be an urgent tone as the author portrays distraction as an epidemic. On the other hand, “In Defense of Distraction” offers a casual yet positive tone because the author’s goal is to paint distraction in a positive light. |
| What are Sam Anderson’s primary arguments in defense of distraction? (see part III of In Defense of Distraction) Do you find them convincing? Why or why not (<150 words) |
| Sam Anderson’s primary argument in defense of distraction is that distraction is needed to support individual creativity. He claims some of the best discoveries or ideas were established when someone was “distracted” from reality. For example, he cites Marcel Proust and talks about how a moment of distraction led him to eat a madeleine that was soaked in tea which provided him reminiscent memories. Essentially, Anderson argues that distraction can be a positive thing because it supports creativity and can produce moments we wouldn’t experience if we hadn’t been distracted. I find this convincing because if we remain focused 100% of the time, there would be no room for new discoveries or experiences. In moments of distraction, it gives room to explore new curiosities and institutes new motivation from the experiences we gain while distracted. |
| After reading all three articles, what are your thoughts on this “epidemic of distraction”? (<50 words) |
| There’s nuance to distraction. I agree that technological advancements have consumed our society, but technological distractions aren’t completely bad. Being aware of how much we spend on technology is essential. We need to focus on our work, but we should give ourselves ample time to be free from obligations. |
| Please annotate “My Distraction Sickness” – highlight at least three instances for each of the following rhetoric concepts: |
| Invention “Although I spent hours each day, alone and silent, attached to a laptop, it felt as if I were in a constant cacophonous crowd of words and images, sounds and ideas, emotions and tirades — a wind tunnel of deafening, deadening noise.” (Comparing the feeling of being alone and on his laptop to the feeling of being surrounded by words, pictures, sounds and thoughts.) “From the panic that easy access to the vernacular English Bible would destroy Christian orthodoxy all the way to the revulsion, in the 1950s, at the barbaric young medium of television, cultural critics have moaned and wailed at every turn. Each shift represented a further fracturing of attention — continuing up to the previously unimaginable kaleidoscope of cable TV in the late-20th century and the now infinite, infinitely multiplying spaces of the web. And yet society has always managed to adapt and adjust, without obvious damage, and with some more-than-obvious progress.” (Provides examples to prove how society has continuously adapted and overcame means of distraction.) “We were hooked on information as eagerly as sugar.” (This is a comparison between the feeling of gaining new information and eating sugar. Both give a high for people who do either). Style “For a decade and a half, I’d been a web obsessive, publishing blog posts multiple times a day, seven days a week, and ultimately corralling a team that curated the web every 20 minutes during peak hours.” (This specific way of describing his lifestyle is unique and was specifically written to emphasize how exhausting it was for him. The way repeats how many times he published a post emphasizes how exhausted he was.) “Each morning began with a full immersion in the stream of internet consciousness and news, jumping from site to site, tweet to tweet, breaking news story to hottest take, scanning countless images and videos, catching up with multiple memes.” (Repetition of site and tweet is tedious similar to how it probably felt to be online for such a long time.) “Has our enslavement to dopamine — to the instant hits of validation that come with a well-crafted tweet or Snapchat streak — made us happier?” (The way the author chose to use “enslavement” is powerful because the word has a very negative connotation. He is using this to emphasize how bad it is that we are obsessed to the high feeling of validation from social media. Memory “At your desk at work, or at home on your laptop, you disappeared down a rabbit hole of links and resurfaced minutes (or hours) later to reencounter the world.” (The author sets the scene to help readers reminisce about a time they were distracted while using technology). “Observe yourself in line for coffee, or in a quick work break, or driving, or even just going to the bathroom. Visit an airport and see the sea of craned necks and dead eyes. We have gone from looking up and around to constantly looking down.” (The author sets the scene to allow readers to reminisce about a time they witnessed people obsessed with their phones to the point that their head takes a craned neck posture). “When we enter a coffee shop in which everyone is engrossed in their private online worlds, we respond by creating one of our own.” (The author sets the scene for readers to remember a relatable scene where everybody is glued to their phones.) Pathos “In the last year of my blogging life, my health began to give out. Four bronchial infections in 12 months had become progressively harder to kick. Vacations, such as they were, had become mere opportunities for sleep.” (Uses personal anecdote to evoke feeling of pity among his readers). “And so I decided, after 15 years, to live in reality.” (The emphasis on 15 years would evoke feelings of pity from readers because 15 years is a long time living against reality). “We all understand the joys of our always-wired world — the connections, the validations, the laughs, the porn, the info.” (The author lists “the connections, the validations, the laughs, the porn, the info” because they sound relatable, and can be more easily understood by readers. Ethos “And 46 percent of Americans told Pew surveyors last year a simple but remarkable thing: They could not live without one.” (PEW is a renowned source, and providing information from them makes the text seem credible). “A regular teen Snapchat user, as the Atlantic recently noted, can have exchanged anywhere between 10,000 and even as many as 400,000 snaps with friends.” (The Atlantic is a credible source, and citing it only makes the source seem more credible.) “The writer Matthew Crawford has examined how automation and online living have sharply eroded the number of people physically making things, using their own hands and eyes and bodies to craft, say, a wooden chair or a piece of clothing or, in one of Crawford’s more engrossing case studies, a pipe organ.” (Citing a case study from a well-established writer would bring credibility to the piece). |
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