I began my first blog post with a revision to my synthesis essay that I wrote in my freshman English class at Santa Clara University. As I re-read it, I realized that my main claim may be too long and broad to follow as a blog post. However, I did notice that I could change my main claim to better fit a general audience who have an interest in popular psychology, or their children. I decided to take the majority of my evidence from Carr’s essay and my argument with classical and operant conditioning to address the potentiality that technology may correlate to the rise in ADD. I stumbled upon this claim through researching if there was any scientific studies that found a correlation between technology use and attention problems. I found an interesting op-ed article citing a study with this statistical evidence showing the correlation above. Therefore, I thought that some statistical evidence would give me the credibility in order to lay out my logical argument behind classical and operant conditioning.
I began with a satirical and passive aggressive tone to demonstrate the way society tends to use mental health disorders, such as ADD, as adjectives to describe their current moods. For example, one may say “I am so ADD” in response to not being able to focus on the exam they have the next day or when one says “I feel so depressed” when in reality they are just having a rough day, as they do not truly have ADD or depression. The casual and nonchalant tone of the opening sentence initially makes one feel relaxed, as relaxed as society is to use mental health disorders as adjectives. But with the next statement that I myself have ADD and have experienced this nonchalant attitude towards it bolsters the seriousness of which I am truly coming across with. This seriousness is meant to draw one into my blog by making it known that if this topic is important to me it should be important to you.
So with this use of a tone shift, and within re-reading my initial conditioning argument of my synthesis essay, I noticed that it was a bit difficult to follow if one does not truly understand what classical and operant conditioning consists of. As a result, I used the effectiveness of visual aids in explaining complex ideas to bolster my argument. I found two videos of popular television shows The Big Bang Theory and The Office that demonstrate the overarching concepts of each respectively. In my rough draft, I had the videos hyperlinked and then attempted to use meta commentary to generally explain the ideas. This again seemed confusing to follow, so I put in the sentence, “watch these next to videos” to encourage the viewer to get a better understanding of the concepts. I additionally reworded the paragraph with more useful meta commentary to relate the video to the logical argument being presented with classical and operant conditioning.
Then in my conclusion, I wrap everything up and additionally plant a nay-sayer. The naysayer is in my concession that my logical argument behind technology conditioning humans resulting in higher diagnoses of ADD may not be the only cause of the increase but may be a correlation to it. In addition, I also concede that there are drugs to combat the symptoms of ADD but dismiss this with the potential harmful effects of the drugs through the another visual aid. The Family Guy clip visually demonstrates the negative effects of the drugs more relatable than what could be said in words which dismisses the use of prescription drugs as a rebuttal to my argument. I then bring in another statistic from The American Academy of Pediatrics to illuminate the detrimental implications that technology may have, further distancing my argument from the naysayer. The dismissal of the naysayer in the final paragraph truly allows for the logic of my argument to prove persuasive in order to highlight the seriousness of ADD and technology’s potential effects on it.