A Rhetorical Analysis Of Brown's Article By Brown

The article by Brown is about the very important electronic device, our ‘smart phones’ that deliberately keeps us pre-occupied though out the day, at times when need it the most for easing our works, checking news, researching and other times when we are bored, something to keep our minds busy with. Smart phones are very useful devices and in some cases it’s a requirement to have it for most of us. Brown throughout his writing tries to convey his point that the frequent use of smart phones has its perks and that its obsession is not harmful, in fact it is a way we connect ourselves with the rest of the world. In the next few paragraphs it will be discussed how effectively Brown has managed to prove his argument in the article. Brown (2012) starts his article by narrating about his personal life hurdles “My wife can’t stand it when I read the news on my phone at the breakfast table, an annoyance I’m certain she wouldn’t suffer were I reading the same article on newsprint. She gets irritated with me, and then I catch her doing the same thing a day later, and I make too big a deal about it. It’s time we gave each other a break.” (para #1) This anecdotal piece of evidence may or may not relate to
others and it is not helping to prove his point rather it is introducing us to the complications created because of the frequent use of smart phones at certain times. Brown (2012) states smartphone dependences as a global issue then jumps to surveys conducted in US exhibiting how much addicted smartphone users are to their smartphones
“…2,000 Americans if they checked their phones while on the toilet. Nearly 40 per cent of them did… Researchers also learned that 94 per cent of users felt “panicked,” “desperate” or “sick” when they misplaced their phones. Only six per cent said they felt “relieved.” Another widely reported survey of 1,000 employed smart phone users found that 80 per cent of them continued to check in with work via their phones…57 per cent did so during family outings, and 25 per cent admitted to arguing with their spouses about these phone habits” (para # 2). First of all,

America is not the whole world so his point about ‘smart phones being a global epidemic’ is not valid. Secondly it is unclear why Brown is using such polls to backup his idea of ‘dependency’ as these surveys portrays the points of addiction and are not strong evidence to prove his argument. Then Brown (2012) generalizes the experience of using smart phones by talking about the advantages & benefits compared to the complications faced generally by people. “ We love our phones for making our jobs easier, yet we resent them for erasing the line between work and home. We adore them for connecting us with our friends around the world, yet we despise them for distracting us from the people right in front of us…Above all else, we delight in the sensual pleasures they provide, the satisfying beeps and buzzes that tell us (and those around us) that we are important and wanted, but we’re terrified we can’t live without this constant stream of reassuring stimulation” (para # 4). These are good points in terms of reasoning his thesis and Brown could have used these sentences at the beginning of his article to articulate his ‘dependency’ point. There is a counter-argument too present in the article regarding the rehab program for “nomophobia” that is offered at California’s Morningside recovery centre, where Brown (2012) includes this centre to criticize their idea of addiction compared to dependency and also uses factual & anecdotal evidence examples to prove his argument. “Heroin addicts can die without heroin. Take away my phone, and I’ll just get bored. I’ll also be less informed, less capable and less productive…Am I dependent on my phone? Absolutely. I’m also dependent on toilets and light bulbs. I can live without them, just as I can live without my Android, but it would suck. Giving up my phone because it’s so useful would be like abandoning my car for going fast. It’s just doing its job” (para # 6-7) Here we can see that Brown is emphasizing clearly his thoughts about smart phone—‘dependency’ compared to ‘addiction’ to the readers and also the argument seems logical since he provides the example of heroin, a drug that becomes an addiction to the point it takes away a person’s life, where as a smart phone is just an electronic device people gets hooked to, which if taken away will not cause such a damage as a drug can cause. Furthermore Brown (2012) provides more of his personal insights regarding what he used to do before the invention of smart phones, that is watch television more often and how that was less different than scrolling through tweets on his phone. There is a history evidence provided by Brown (2012) where he mentions how industrial works have declined and how people now are getting more time to network, text or chat on their smart phones. “Over the past 30 years, the number of self-employed Canadians has been rising, just as industrial jobs have been disappearing. Since the 2008 downturn, more and more of us have turned to the ‘gig economy’ and those still on payrolls have been spending more time working from home or telecommuting. Some of us have chosen to jump from the traditional 9-to-5 workday and others were pushed, but either way, the era of clock punching is waning. Many of us are paid not for our hours but for assuming responsibilities. That means we increasingly expect flexibility to drive our kids to daycare, take long lunches, surf the web aimlessly and text our friends at 2 p.m” (para # 9) So according to Brown smart phone dependency has increased because of the advancement of technology with the progression of time and the change of work habits. These are good points in terms of explaining the reason for frequent internet connectivity although we do not see any direct relation of smart phone obsession to outside works in here. Moreover Brown (2012) admits that smart phones are hard to resist once we start using them on a regular basis but the key is balancing the tech-life and personal/work-life. “We can set up our phones to put most incoming email on the shelf to be read later, while giving us a buzz if something comes from our boss or is marked urgent. We can block numbers and send auto-replies. We can use apps that make life with smart phones less intrusive, and if we can’t find an app to do something we need, we can create an app that does” (para # 10) Brown (2012) discusses ways we can actually manage our smart phones better. Brown ends his writing by reminding the readers that technology is made by humans for human connectivity, it all depends on how one decides to use the technology and that a virtual text can create a more effective impact on a person rather than a in-person conversation. Overall Jesse Brown's article is very interesting although his way of organizing his arguments and points are not very strong since he articulated more on his anecdotal evidence and general experiences to show that smart phone obsession is not an issue at all.
Another flaw is that he stated that smart phone dependency is a global epidemic but did not mention any global survey rather focused mainly on US surveys which makes it a North-American epidemic not global actually. Brown showed his readers this conflict of emotions regarding how he feels about this constant use of smart phones at certain places, which makes his stance unclear at times. Brown also provides solutions on how smart phones can be used effectively at the last two
paragraphs.