Nowadays, people can use computers or pencils to compile their works. “Which way is more competitive?” has become a controversial issue. “An Ode to the User-Friendly Pencil” by Bonnie Laing, explores “the pencil wins over the computer hands down” by using irony. In the second paragraph, the narrator’s friend asked him to buy a computer even though the narrator is a writer. He believes that “the word-processing capacity of a computer would make him a better writer”. (Laing 2) He uses allusion to list a group of authors’experience in order to illustrate that “spending $3000 on a piece of molded plastic was going to make him wealthier.” (Laing 2) Nevertheless, in the third paragraph, Laing turns to express the breakdown of computer. It makes the
With the right set of tools one can create additions to their home or fix them. A tool is something that one must us with e there hand. In a computer science lecture called Metaphors We Compute By the college Professor John M. Lawler, a comparison is made between computers and tools. The professor explains that “A machine is a form of tool, and that's an extension of our manipulative ability -- functionally, something you use in your hand” (Lawler). This refers to the idea that a computer is a tool like a hammer or a hand saw. We make things with them and they one perform work when a person is using them. This is social interaction on a larger scale because it is between a computer science teacher and prospective programming
In the past 100 years, the world has completely turned around. The technological and computer revolutions have completely changed the way the world works. Henry Ford revolutionized factorial production through the creation of the assembly line. It increased efficiency and a basic standard of conformity among products, therefore making the company a lot more successful. The rest of the industry creating a nation-wide revolution based on efficiency adopted this new innovation. Following the innovation of the assembly line, a new era of development came into existence. In the 1970’s, computers were first introduced. Although they were as large as a room and could only play tic tac toe, they were the start of the technological revolution that made our society what it is today. Hundreds, if not thousands, of new inventions were thought of each year, creating new jobs and a new way of life. Records and files previously kept in file cabinets are now all computerized. Every person’s life is computerized: identification, police reports, one’s house and work. Almost every person has a computer, whether it is used for fun, school, Internet connection, graphic arts, or music. Computers have revolutionized our lives, whether that is a good or bad thing is the question. Do we create and control the computers, or have our own inventions taken such a hold on our lives, that they now control us? Aldous Huxley uses Henry Ford as the basis for an omni powerful leader who enforces the new values of efficiency through a totalitarian and mind-controlling government; subsequently, Huxley creates Brave New World to warn us of the effect that technology will have on our lives in the future.
While preparing for one of his college lectures, Dennis Baron, a professor and linguistics at the University of Illinois, began playing with the idea of how writing has changed the world we lived in and materials and tools we use in everyday life. This lecture slowly transitioned into “Should Everybody Write?” An article that has made many wonder if technology has made writing too easy for anyone to use or strengthens a writer's ability to learn and communicate their ideas. Baron uses rhetorical strategies in his article to portray to his audience his positive tone, the contrast and comparison of context and his logical purpose.
People all around agree that technology is changing how we think, but is it changing us for the better? Clive Thompson definitely thinks so and this book is his collection of why that is. As an avid fiction reader I wasn’t sure this book would captivate me, but the 352 pages seemingly flew past me. The book is a whirlwind of interesting ideas, captivating people, and fascinating thoughts on how technology is changing how we work and think.
Pipher writes of her experience reading Twyla Hansen’s article that “encourages land owners to plant slow-growing shade trees” (439). “After reading Hansen’s article,” Pipher states, “I bought a sycamore” (439). Along with personal experience in the specific example, Pipher uses allegory to convey the effect of writing using a much more corporeal and understandable example. By using allegory, Pipher’s concept of the significance of writing is “dumbed down” to make it quite clear and understandable to even the least educated
Gelernter admits the computers are very helpful for educational purposes if the people use it wisely. He suggests, “Computers have the potential to accomplish great things. With right software, it could help make science tangible or teach neglected topic like art and music.” (278). But while admitting the power of technology, he also points out the adverse effects of excessive use of technology in the education system. He states, “Computers make our worst educational nightmare come true.” (279). According to him the improper or overuse of computer hinders the learning ability. He reports the fact that over past few years computers has been assumed to be a necessity in America’s classrooms. Computers have been introduced to children from the elementary levels. Technology c...
While writing, authors use a variety of literary devices to allow the reader to comprehend the main idea that needs to be taken from the story. Included in these literary devices is diction, and diction is crucial in the author’s development of the tone and theme that is produced. Without precise word choice, the reader would not know what kind of emotions to feel or what kind of ideas to think about the piece of writing. In the futuristically set short story, television runs everybody’s lives, and nobody can be who they are anymore due to their sitting in front of a television screen. The use of Bradbury’s selective wording throughout his story leads the reader to step into an eerie, yet strangely familiar setting. In the short story, “The Pedestrian”, Ray Bradbury uses diction to emphasize the morbid tone displayed throughout the story line and to emphasize the overall theme that technology can replace individualism.
In this book, Forster is able to portray a reality that could become true if we, human beings, keep depending on technology for survival. Although it is very distressing that people became dependable to the Machine to the extent where they loose their humanity and become like a machine as well, with no mind of their own. It is incredible how people were not able to survive when the Machine stopped working; it is understandable that people nowadays will also have a hard time surviving without technology since we were born into a technological world. But the World will be well when people like Kuno remind humans what is really important in life.
interpositions of computers is that their role in directing what we will see or know is so rarely noticed," (247). Throughout this paper, I will examine the advancement of inventions, work ethics, jobs, and how the compu...
We live in a time where technology is at the center of our society. We use technology on a daily basis, for the simplest tasks, or to aid us in our jobs, and don’t give a second thought to whether these tools are actually helping us. Writers such as Kevin Kelly and Clive Thompson argue that the use of technology actually helps us humans; whiles writers such as Nicholas Carr argue that technology affects people’s abilities to learn information negatively.
Computers are a magnificent feat of technology. They have grown from simple calculators to machines with many functions and abilities. Computers have become so common that almost every home has at least one computer, and schools find them a good source for information and education for their students (Hafner, Katie, unknown). Computers have created new careers and eliminated others and have left a huge impact on our society. The invention of the computer has greatly affected the arts, the business world, and society and history in many different areas, but to understand how great these changes are, it is necessary to take a look at the origins of the computer.
Computer has made the life easier by providing various applications and technologies. For example, while computer has replaced typewriter, it helps the students to become a better writer as they can “revise text, rearrange paragraphs, and experiment with the tone and shape of an essay” () while using word processing. Thus, the computer helps the students to improvise their writing. Human relationship with co...
Turkle, Sherry. _The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit_. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.
In Hamlet on the Holodeck, Janet Murray argues that we live in an age of electronic incubabula. Noting that it took fifty years after the invention of the printing press to establish the conventions of the printed book, she writes, "The garish videogames and tangled Web sites of the current digital environment are part of a similar period of technical evolution, part of a similar struggle for the conventions of coherent communication" (28). Although I disagree in various ways with her vision of where electronic narrative is going, it does seem likely that in twenty years, or fifty, certain things will be obvious about electronic narrative that those of us who are working in the field today simply do not see. Alongside the obvious drawbacks--forget marble and gilded monuments, it would be nice for a work to outlast the average Yugo--are some advantages, not the least of which is what Michael Joyce calls "the momentary advantage of our awkwardness": we have an opportunity to see our interactions with electronic media before they become as transparent as our interactions with print media have become. The particular interaction I want to look at today is the interaction of technology and imagination. If computer media do nothing else, they surely offer the imagination new opportunities; indeed, the past ten years of electronic writing has been an era of extraordinary technical innovation. Yet this is also, again, an age of incubabula, of awkwardness. My question today is, what can we say about this awkwardness, insofar as it pertains to the interaction of technology and the imagination?
As the banking, communicating, and social networking industries are evolving and becoming more complex, the paper used has started to become more irrelevant (Kohl 5). The inventions that are being produced are making small impacts to reduce the use of paper. Every year technology is becoming more exciting and unpredictable (9). For instance, a library with no books, a computer the size of forty sheets of paper, and a cell phone that has equal abilities as a computer. People use the word technology lightly but do not realize how much it affects the way everyone lives and how extreme it has became (Lancaster 71). Albert Einstein says “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity (62).”