As an avid user of electronic media myself, I totally agree with Steven Pinker in his essay, “Mind Over Mass Media.” This Harvard professor of psychology goes against the general consensus that computer based media makes one stupider by saying that in fact it makes you smarter. With access to such a wide array of learning and teaching resources, you learn and retain much more than thought of from this kind of electronic media. To back up his thesis, Pinker uses the input of actual expert scientists who study the effects of media on the brain, and actual psychologists. He shows that they have tangible proof of how experience of this media can help the brain more than harm it. This kind of expert opinion and the sole fact the Pinker himself is a psychologist builds up his credibility, causing the reader to believe his opinions to be true.
In her essay, “I Tweet, Therefore I Am,” Peggy Orenstein examines the effects of Twitter and other social media outlets. She open sup the topic by recounting an epiphany she had while listening to a book reading with her daughter. She explains her urge to tweet about that moment, and then she stopped and analyzed why she had such the urge, and what exactly twitter does to it’s users. Her essay mostly utilizes pathos, in the sense that it taps into one’s emotions and makes them question who exactly they are according to what they post on twitter and social media. She emphasizes that once you have established a strong presence on twitter, you lose yourself, you lose the sense of who you really are. You are only how others perceive you and nothing more. I personally don’t agree with her claims because I felt that she over-exaggerated everything and used only how she was feeling to describe the feelings of those who she doesn’t even know.
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