“From Stone Age to Phone Age”
While i was reading “From Stone Age to Phone Age” by Barbara Ehrenreich, I immediately noticed that she puts everyone in the same boat without any hesitation. She even goes on to state that there are, “an estimated 100 million people worldwide running around and talking into the air, with only a small black object nestling against one ear to distinguish them from the deinstitutionalized psychotics” (30-31). I even took this as an insult because she compares those who use this object, now often known as bluetooth, to the psychotic, specifically those who talk to either themselves or no one. But aside from my immediate complaints, I noticed other things that she said that help me to understand her views of the “phone age”.
Barbara Ehrenreich believes that there psychological reasons for conforming to this new-age technology. She believes that evolutionary psychology plays a big role because it, “claims that we do what we do because our ape-like ancestors once did the same thing” (31). She believes that humans took on to cell phones in such a big way because humans are social animals, much like “most of our primate cousins.” We need to be verbally connected to other humans.
She also believes that there is another evolutionary psychological reason, “according to which the cell phone users are seeking not fellowship but isolation from the hordes of fellow humans around them” (31). Humans can occasionally be dependent on one another, but will also choose to be independent. Humans, like other species, feel the need to be isolated from their kind. Another evolutionary psychological idea is that humans have lived in hierarchical societies and they had items to signal their status in the society. This will possibly be the case until the cell phones, “become as common as Walkmen.”
As for the way this article is written, the author uses many different types of rhetorical modes to get her point across. The biggest one she...