Hyper Normalization Adam Curtiss

How has technology affected mankind over time? How has it affected the youth of our country? How has it affected the adults? We rely on the internet for almost everything, do we still have the power to detach ourselves from it? The article, “The Virtues of Reality” written by Ross Douthat caught my attention with a thesis that is quite realistic. Douthat theorizes that the main cause of both the youth becoming safer over time along with the adults growing more immature is the virtual reality that the internet provides us with. Douthat then leaves the readers with a thought to ponder about. He questions if we as human beings have become so reliant on technology, that we can’t take a step back. What I wish to know is why should we need to take a step back when the world that we live in has infused technology along with the internet into everything that we do in life?

Each change that has been made to VAWA over the few decades has made some attempts to fill in the holes left by the previous enactments. However, recent executive orders have arguably begun to strip away what VAWA had built. These recent changes are only making this already vulnerable group of women even more vulnerable.

The author uses literary devices such as imagery, tone, and selection of detail to portray Montag’s complex and appreciative relationship to the setting in this passage of Fahrenheit 451.

Seife illustrates the internet to be a trap for close minded people. He states, “With news and data that is tailored to our prejudices, we deprive ourselves of true information. We wind up wallowing in our own false ideas, reflected back at us by the media. The news is ceasing to be a window unto the world; it is becoming a mirror that allows us to gaze only upon our own beliefs (299). This happens when individuals avoid ‘negative information’ that doesn’t coincide with their own beliefs just to be comfortable. Which in other words, would put individuals in a state of cognitive dissonance. The internet is supposed to be a place where people explore new things, take on new

When one takes a good look at our society, it is clear that it is purely dominated by the messages that are constantly fed to us by the media. The media is so powerful that a majority of people do not even realize that it affects them in any way. In fact most people are convinced that they are completely unaffected by it. One of the reasons that the media is so powerful is because of the cycle of socialization. The cycle of socialization can open ones eyes to why our society has specific views of people from other cultures, races, and genders.

Yet to me, someone belonging to the youngest generation of Americans, these events have become normal. That’s not to say I don’t think the conflict happening across the world is horrifying—I do—or that I don’t have sympathy and compassion for the people affected—I do. It’s simply the situation that’s always been going on, and I’ve grown used to it because I’ve never known anything else.

To support this claim, I will present two very popular yet controversial documentaries that were aimed to educate viewers on a couple of compelling societal issues. I will explore how the inclusion of pathos, logos and ethos in ‘Sicko’ by Michael Moore and ‘Supersize Me’ by Morgan Spurlock clarified their messages and made their arguments very convincing. These two documentary films show that the values adhered to by the two filmmakers, and probably by the media firms they work with as well as their corporate sponsors often influence the kind of information and at which angle it is presented to the

Society is stocked full of various trends and epidemics. To many, the way in which these trends start is a mystery. As members of a society, we often subconsciously take part in these patterns without questioning our participation. Therefore, people continue to ignore the drastic changes in society, and the reasons why they occur so swiftly. There is a lack of motivation to take a step back and inquire about society as a whole, and rethink one’s actions. In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell effectively discusses and analyzes how and why ideas spread throughout societies using the rhetorical appeals, ethos, pathos and logos.

More specifically, changes have insidiously crept into these infrastructures and represent a troubling trend of racism and Islamophobia. This “anti-Muslim racism is…a racial infrastructure in which cultural forms and institutions interact in a complex social system of racialization” (Rana 119). This is evidenced in the government legislation, but more subversively, in the language and symbols employed by the authorities and society. These languages and symbols are disseminated through society, and “often [set] unconscious…forces that determine both our individual and collective behavior, [and] ways of perceiving, thought patterns, and values” (Kiltz 87). Moreover, they exemplify “who is important,” and reinforce the “hidden hierarchy of people” (Thomas 89,88).

Mainstream refers to a general consensus in regards to normality. Society generally sees normal as good and abnormal as bad. Someone being called “normal” or “abnormal” establishes social prejudices such as exclusions. Daystar, Speed of Dark, Frankenstein, Enemy of the People and Proof are all literature pieces that share a common theme of the impact mainstream society has on individuals. The theme of society’s perception towards mothers, disabilities, physical appearances and mental stability is portrayed through individual characters that struggled to live in a mainstream society.

The media has intensely affected society, an effect so immense that people don’t notice its presence sometimes. Individuals become solely

There are few places on this Earth, if any, where the possibilities are truly endless. However, if you detach yourself from the physical world and emerge into the “online” world, you find that this just might actually be accurate in this realm. The World Wide Web has had so much to offer to us since the early 1990s, but with this comes controversy. Unleashed onto a plane of seemingly immeasurable freedom of anonymity, was the world ready for such responsibility? Since those early days when new emerging technology changed our lives immensely, have we at all become a better place, or have we bitten off more than we can chew, and doomed our human relations forever? Exploring these concepts are three in-depth articles, including: “Growing Up Tethered” by Sherry Turkle, “The Loneliness of the Interconnected” by Charles Seife, and “Cybersexism” by Laurie Penny. Although it is thought that the Internet brings the world together, it actually does not help us politically, culturally, and economically like one would believe, as it makes us unable to be independent, isolates us from different points of view, and encourages real-world violence against women and other minority groups.

In conclusion, the internet truly imprisons the human race. It takes time, but overcoming the daily use of the internet is possible. The commitment and discipline has to be there to cut down the use of it. Schwartz continued using the internet once he came back from his vacation, but he goes completely offline for brief periods. People don’t have to go offline completely, but it is possible to shorten the time you spend online. Focusing your attention, and gaining control of your mental is key in life, if humans decide they can cut back then it is very possible to see a more vibrant world outside of the

The use of rhetorical questions in Dyson’s essay effectively reveals how concerned she is regarding the different communities coming together and possibly interacting while online. In her second paragraph, The author questions rather the groups “can get along”(295) and mentions that the only thing that gets the public’s reaction is the speculation that children are fully accessing adult sites(295). Dyson seems to be very eager to expose the truth and in order to change her audience’s view of World Wide Web, she made a connection between cyberspace and real estate “Some property is privately owned and

Many people in our society can relate. We wake up, check our phones. We go to school, check our phones. We go home, check our phones. And right before we go to bed, we check our phones. And for what? What are we constantly checking? Imagine logging out of social networking sites for one day. How would you feel? You would probably feel disconnected and want to log back on as soon as possible. This generation uses these websites to connect, to stay in the loop, and to become involved. However, people will take advantage of the use of these websites, and in return, the websites take over the majority of their life. The act of constantly wanting to be