ur Today it is very easy to get tethered to electronics and communications that give you instant results. A quick check on networking site is becoming the norm verses actually picking up the phone and calling the person you are catching up with. Sherry Turkle, in her essay “Can You Hear Me Now?,” discusses points and personal experiences that persuade the reader that today’s society is becoming “more connected- or more alienated”, than ever before. Turkle utilizes the pathos appeal by using the rhetorical appeals of anecdotes, assertion, and reasoning. She relies heavily on the use of pathos throughout the entire article. This is important because it gets the reader involved in the story and sets the stage for the entire article. …show more content…

Turkle then moves on to the topic of kids and cell phones and how they are dependent on these devices for constant communication. She says that kids are not working through feelings and adventures on their own and need some sort of immediate response from someone and have to pick up the phone or instant message. This paragraph in her essay has more feelings and assumptions referenced. Here she is attempting to use pathos and she does not have enough of an argument to persuade the reader that kids are tethered and that it is a bad thing.

In the last couple of paragraphs she starts to discuss robots and how they are replacing animals and humans. Here she starts to lose the audience by taking away from the main point of being tethered to electronics. Her anecdotes involve talking about her little girl and the replacement of an animal for a robot. The other is where she refers to robots taking care of the elderly and how some may believe that it is okay just because they have a companion. Turkle relies too heavily on pathos here tugging at the reader’s heart strings. I don’t think that she would persuade her audience with the last two paragraphs.

Turkle’s essay has many valid points using different rhetorical techniques to persuade the reader. The majority of the article is based on her true life experiences on where technology is taking our society. Her essay keeps the