Introduction
Only Disconnect is an essay by Gary Shteyngart published in 2010 in New York Times. It concerns the notions of people’s personal connection in the age of electronic devices and the Internet. The essay uses a wide range of instruments to craft its rhetorical appeal. The ideas and the way they are presented manage to attract the reader’s attention from emotional, logical, and ethical standpoints. The main idea of the essay lies in the fact that the more people use their phones, the less connected they feel to the world around them. The small textual details and use of various appeals succeed in making the reader reevaluate and reconsider their relationship with technology.
Argumentative Appeals
There are three types of argumentative appeals: emotional, logical, and ethical. In the given essay, a larger emphasis is placed on emotional and ethical aspects. For emotional appeal, the author uses his realities, such as mentioning that he has been actively using the iPhone since 2008 and the anecdotal story of buying it (Shteyngart 1). The author reminisces the times when his world was filled with reading books and sailing through life, creating a sense of longing for carefree living in the reader.
The logic of the essay’s rhetoric comes through most efficiently in one instance. It contains a scientific claim that every year, people lose from six to eight percent of their humanity (Shteyngart 1). Since the work lacks a strong logical focus, it does not provide the reader with a notion of the severe consequences of using mobile devices and the Internet excessively. A more distinct idea of the aftermath of social media on a person’s well-being in combination with the emotional aspect would have been more successful in fulfilling the writer’s goal.
The ethical appeal of the work shines through the first-person narration that aims to create a connection and a sense of relatability between the author and the reader. Nowadays, everyone seemingly feels pressured to react and act to mend any social or political disparity, which understandably works as an overwhelming factor in one’s life. The writer is portrayed as lonely and distressed by the news delivered to him through the phone, appealing to the sense of anxiety that actively existing in the modern world creates (Shteyngart 2). The point of the author’s credibility lies in his experience as a writer who used to be submerged in the realities of the world around him. His experience authentically portrays a swift shift from feeling comfortable in his own skin to being anxious and consumed by his new device.
Textual Details
The author employs various speech instruments to convey his state of change through technology, for example, a tautology. He uses a string of words “increasingly, irrevocably” to emphasize his disconnection from his old lifestyle. In addition to similarities, the work contains binary oppositions, which further describe the author’s disposition. The word “solitary” is opposed to “gregarious,” and the words “content provider” are opposed to the word “artist” (Shteyngart 1). This use of textual details showcases a notion of change brought upon by technological intrusion.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Only Disconnect by Gary Shteyngart is a work that provides insight into a person’s plunge into the world of technology and social media. It accurately translates this personal experience into a tale of being frightened and distanced from the world despite having a device meant for connection. In order to do so, it employs similarities and opposition, as well as emotional, logical, and ethical appeals, with various degrees of success.
Work Cited
Shteyngart, Gary. “Only Disconnect.” New York Times, 2010. Web.