Chapters 6&7 Ethos, logos, pathos

In chapters six and seven Carr uses many examples of ethos, logos, and pathos.  In chapter six, Carr talks about the idea of the book.  He gives both sides of the argument on whether books will become obsolete in the future and be replaced by e-books and handheld reading devices such as the nook and kindle.  Carr makes it clear that the book is still very popular and widely used today.  He also appeals to pathos when he mentions all the reasons why reading a book is better. “You can take a book to the beach without worrying about sand getting in its works.  You can take it to bed without being nervous about it falling to the floor when you nod off…” “In this chapter he appeals to ethos when he talks about Amazon and gives specifics such as the year and a set number.  “Amazon.com reported in early 2009 that for the 275,000 books it sells in both traditional and digital form…”  Using the website Amazon appeals to ethos because it is a well known, popular, safe, and useful website, which gives it credibility to the audience as a whole.  Carr appeals to logos when he says ““no big purchases of ink and paper, no printer bills no leading of heavy boxes onto trucks, no returns of unsold copies…”  This appeals to the audience’s logic because Carr is bringing up easy to understand reasons why e-books are better and more efficient.

In chapter seven, Carr uses more opinion and factual information to continue to talk about how the internet shapes our brain and molds it.  He also talks about both sides of the argument, how the internet is hurting and how the internet is helping our brains.  In one of the first sentences of chapter seven, Carr appeals to pathos.  He says “I realize I’ve dragged you through a lot of space and time over the last few chapters, and I appreciate your fortitude in sticking with me”.  He appeals to emotions because he is relating to the crowd and reminding us that it is still him telling the story.  He appeals to ethos because he names many specific experiments that have been conducted to back up his points.  For example, Carr explains an experiment conducted that was to study the activity of certain parts of the brain when experienced and inexperienced computer users used a computer.  The study showed that at first the inexperienced computer users prefrontal cortex that on the first day was dormant, proved to be extremely active, just as active as the experienced users, after just five hours of internet use over five days.  Carr appeals to logos when he talks about how due to all of our day to day distractions, we find it harder to read longer works because more people can relate considering it is true for much of the audience.