Technology does pray a price, and not only a monetary price but in all aspects of
personal, interpersonal, and social life of the tech geek. Matt Richtel's Hooked on Technology,
and Paying a Price goes through the detail of how the struggle of tech and everyday life is in
constant tug of war. How do we explain this struggle and its war? The use of the concepts kairos
and stasis will help aid the argument of technology changing society.

What is concept of kairos in rhetorical aspect of this story? In our textbook 'Ancient
Rhetoric for Contemporary Students' it explains kairos as, 'points to the situatedness of an
argument's suitability depends on the particulars of a given rhetorical situation'.
The particulars used in kairos to explain an argument are as followed: have
recent events made this topic relevant, how urgent it is, and what are the events, what arguments
about this topic already exist, where are these arguments occurring, what kinds of arguments
work best considering the needs of the audience, and does this topic connect with other topics'
are they relevant? In regards to the topic of my story; hits a few of these points. The timeliness of
the story could never be better. Technology could never be more prevalent in our 21st century
lives from: smartphones, tablets, texting, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, and etc. This topic is only
urgent in eyes of the beholder. Some people, relationships, and families might say this is an
urgent topic while others that embrace technology might say it's not. An example from the story
shows it is timely, 'For better or worse, the consumption of media, as varied as email and TV,
has exploded. In 2008, people consumed three times as much information each day as they did in
1960.' This example continues on through the present day with young parents
giving young kids technology. This appears to be a perpetuating cycle, and if this isn't under
control our future kids will not have the necessary tools to communicate effectively.

Richtel targets the household, academic community, and scientific community to address
his argument. From the text, 'A study at the University of California, Irvine, found that people
interrupted by e-mail reported significantly increased stress compared with those left to focus.
Stress hormones have been shown to reduce short-term memory, said Gary Small, a psychiatrist
at the University of California' Los Angelos. This shows congruent evidence
from an academic venue in his argument that technology not only affects human interaction on
physical level, but on a physiological level affecting the brain's ability to focus. On the contrary
the academic venue in his argument has a counter argument that technology is great for the body
physiologically. 'At the University of Rochester researchers found that players of some fast-
paced video games can track the movement of a third more objects on a screen than nonplayers.
They say the games can improve reaction and the ability to pick out details amid clutter'.
In Richtel's argument he brings about the relation to family interaction and time spent
using or viewing technology based devices. 'At home, people consume 12 hours of media a day
on average, when an hour spent with, say, the internet and TV simultaneously counts as two
hours'. If modern society consumes this much technology in a single day future
society is presumed to not only replicate the same actions which will confirm Richtel's argument
that we have let technology pull us away from the concept of family. Ritchel also considers
different venues in direct connection to his awareness of varying audiences. He uses varying
college universities, research facilities and scientific facilities to gather his information
concerning the topic of his argument on constant consumption of technology. He also gathers an
abundance of information from Mr. Campbell and his family at the home to connect the his
argument to Campbell household. Connecting it to each family member and how they use
technology in absence of family interaction or decreased level of tech consumption. While he
quotes some scientific studies done in the scientific community showing various technological
skills we learn as humans, how technology changes our brain chemistry, psychiatric dependency
of tech, and some benefit of technology in our lives.

Richtel also uses some aspects of stasis theory to explain his argument. Stasis theory is
broken up into many different parts that will explain how an argument is formed from this
concept. The two biggest subsets of stasis theory are the major and minor proposition. The major
proposition is the central thing a person is trying to argue, everything else in the argument works
in its service. The minor propositions are much smaller arguments made to aid a major
proposition. Arguments in stasis theory are not so obvious. Counter arguments are used to have a
clear dispute with an original argument. In the case of Richtel, the counter argument would be
that technology isn't bad at all; it can be used in a good way. An example from Richtel reads,
'Technology use can benefit the brain in some ways, researchers say. Imaging studies show the
brains of Internet users become more efficient at finding information. And players of some video
games develop better visual acuity'. There is always a 'bright side' to an
argument and this argument provides a perfect example. I being a culprit of great use of video
games have benefitted from it and also excel in communication skills, interpersonal relations,
and etc. In the article he positions his counter arguments between this original topic in order to
give a compare and contrast to his argument but also a clear dispute that the use of tech is good
but 'abusive' use of technology can be quite harmful. In our story Richtel talks about the
Campbell family on multiple vacations and how the family says they will spend actual time with
each other, while their actions say otherwise. They are in California for spring break and Mrs.
Campbell wants and hopes that the family unplugs but can't. On the first night there, they didn't
even go to dinner; they stayed on their devices all night. She's sees this as a concern calls for a
family meeting the next day on the way to the aquarium. Mr. Campbell finds it hard to not even
check his email and he is playing video games some time later. This behavior sparks a
conversation between the Mr. and Mrs., and Mr. Campbell does the typical 'man' thing to bring
up the past experience of their honeymoon to explain how he can tear away tech but such a
failure on his part. She counters him by citing the fact that she recalls him spending two hours in
the hotel business center online. Richtel shows from stasis theory an explicit question of, can his
family ever 'unplug' from technology at all? To me, it seems much harder to do this considering
they went on a vacation and the use not really affecting anyone accept Mrs. Campbell. In stasis
theory four concepts of questions are used to accurately explain an argument. Two question
concepts from stasis theory that explain Mr and Mrs. Campbell's conversation are quality and
policy. Quality is further explained by Mr. Campbell excessive use of video games to unwind
and constant viewing of his email to stay connected to work. Policy is explained by Mrs.
Campbell's need for her family to take a vacation and 'unplug' from the world, family meeting
when it seems tough for them to get away from their devices, and their between spouse
conversation to help clean up how Mr. Campbell can help lessen their use of tech on a vacation
to interact more with family.

This story hits the nail on the head that being hooked on technology can be a real
detriment to not only oneself but people around that person. Ritchel's argument is strongly
confirmed that technology is an addiction and hard to get out of by using the two concepts of
rhetorical analysis, kairos and stasis theory. If I could use the same two concepts on my own
personal life this argument would be a back and forth debate. I grew learning to be an expert
communicator while having unlimited access to technology for whatever use I deem useful. I
choose to use technology for a purpose that is seen as useful while being an outgoing person that
doesn't use Facebook and YouTube like a drug addict.

