Once Upon a Time...

Abha Dawesar: Life in the "digital now"
https://www.ted.com/talks/abha_dawesar_life_in_the_digital_now/transcript?language=en

In Abha Dawesar's Ted Talk, she explains how our life is a story made up of 2 "dimensions of time," our entire lifespan and each moment/direct experience of our life. We need both in order to to experience the "flow of time" and have our own story. But she claims that technology in the 21st century is disrupting this "flow of time" because it is making each moment smaller, quicker, and harder for us to follow. The internet takes information from far off places and brings it right to our pocket to view whenever we want. The internet causes us to not have a perception of time, jumbling the past, present, and future. She calls this confusion of time and place the "digital now." She goes on to talk about how the digital now is always a few seconds ahead of us. She talks about how the digital now are not moments that will further our life's story but instead is merely a distraction that keeps us from building up moments. She discusses many personal anecdotes including her story of surviving hurricane Sandy in order to hook the audience. She challenges the audience to put down their phones and add to their life's story by living in the present in order to store up memories for the future. Her purpose in telling this to the audience is that she wants others to understand that life is more than just looking at a screen. We are here for a reason and the only way to figure out what that reason is, we have to live through life's moments to create our personal story by the end. By living in this so called "digital now" it is becoming harder and harder for people to become their true selves and discover life real wonders.

The author really utilizes the technique of pathos in her talk because of her various personal stories. She uses pathos in hopes of setting emotion in the audience in order to persuade them to listen to her ideas. She uses pathos from the very start of her talk when she describes her experience with Hurricane Sandy. She quickly relates this event with her main argument when she talks about how people were in the street charging their phones on public outlets because they were without power. People are so desperate to be locked into the net at all times that it has become as important to them as food and shelter, as she describes. The way she delivers these lines in her talk also add to the emotion that she wants the audience to feel towards what she is describing. At the end of her talk, Dawesar uses more pathos when she describes the memories she made with her grandma by asking her to teach her how to cook and skip. These moments will always be a part of her even though they passed in time. She uses this example to show how this is giving the present her full attention, unlike looking at a screen. I love doing things with my 2 grandmas, so when she was telling this story I could really relate and perfectly understand her argument.

Logos and ethos were not really used in her argument. The only point that I think would be ethos is when she references something that her yoga instructor once said. This could be ethos because it gives Dawesar someone who backs her up and shows that if others are with her then her argument is probably not crazy. Her instructor stated that "love is attention" and Dawesar uses this quote to complete her argument by saying that the "digital now" threatens the flow of love in our lives and disrupts our life story.

I chose this particular Ted Talk because I believe many of the ideas that Dawesar discussed. Although some of her points were very confusing to follow, I totally agree with her idea that digital technology is destroying the authenticity of our lives. I am the kind of person who is not really on social media and I like experience moments in life to the fullest. I wish more people would think like Dawesar would because I think that it is so sad how much social media and digital technology in general is taking over our lives.