Rhetorical component: This part I believe would kind of exclude the millennials. I think this is also the part where I realized the targeted audience was middle aged people instead of a younger generation. This is due to the fact that the websites that are listed (eHarmony, OkCupid) are archaic dating websites used for middle aged people. If this was directed at millennials, then the websites used would be Tinder, Grindr, CoffeeMeetsBagel.

Rhetorical component: The medium is in the form of a website article. Which is similar to a traditional paper and print design, however with some extra layers of colors. I would say that this article is more targeted towards middle aged people when it reflects on the negative perspectives of quantifying oneself. The form breaks up into various subtitles, which makes one think that it could be in a research format or summary format of various chapters of the book.

Rhetorical component: This could also be another pathos.

Rhetorical component: This part is appealing to the audience's emotions. It is, in my perspective, attempting to evoke an emotional response of either interest or fear of automated lovers. Therefore, he is asking "Wouldn't that be nice" and in turn your emotional response would either flick to one direction or the other.

Rhetorical component: This is Selinger's way of establishing the ethos component of his work. However, he does not establish his own authority over the text but rather someone else's, Dormehl, the actual original author of the book. I thought this part was intriguing since this was the moment I realized that the article we were reading was actually just a watered down version of the book. Therefore, it was overall a summary. However, he establishes ethos of Dormehl by stating he was a senior writer at a company as well as a journalist who has been researching on digital humanities, which thereby makes him credible.

Rhetorical component: This is the start of the main point of what Selinger is making. He presents us with the main question which is "What happens when everything is quantified?" He then proceeds to point out the negative effects of how quantification has affected our society through relationships, invasion of privacy, loss of autonomy, etc.

Personal examples: I have actually used CourseSmart before at Long Beach State University during a Organic Chemistry course that I took. The professor feels like he is doing us a favor. The monitoring and engagement metrics show him how much time we spend interacting/studying the material. However, it leads to students highlighting random sentences from the text and leaving the browser on to make it seem like they're actually doing something. It is counter productive. The more that we are being monitored, the less we are actually interested in the material. It leads to unmotivated students believing that the class is stupid. It does lead to the question of why schools do this. Personally, I agree with the author with schools wanting to increase their good stats instead of putting out real stats. However, once professors start seeing students as a number rather than a person that's where the engagement and interaction comes to a halt.

Conversation Questions:

• Would you be interested in a future where you can have the perfect life basically- be happy when you want to be happy, have desired effects, practically live in a utopia? Why or why not?
• What are your thoughts about the author's argument of technology decreasing our autonomy levels?

Answer:

• Yes, because I like being happy. However, there is always a downside. A utopia doesn't exist, the only way that it can exist is in an simulated environment. Realistically, that's the only true form. That can be regarded as bad because at that point you'd only be living in a virtual reality. You'd constantly be hooked up. I don't know- actually you know, that sounds pretty cool.
• With great power comes great responsibilities. Technology gives us so many ways to quantify ourselves. In some ways, it makes us less reliant on human powered services because we can do those services ourselves via an app. We have apps for things like car dealerships ; for example there's an app called Switch. We use the internet to make higher level decisions. I see what the author is saying but at the same time, the reason why those apps are so popular is because consumer wants these services. It only testifies that these apps create value. Because of these apps, we are able to make our own decisions based on the data that's gathered.

Contextual material: This has become a major issue in the past couple of years, especially in Japan. Japan's birth rates have been steadily declining as of late. Fewer young adults date, consumed in their work life or lack of interest in marriage. In 2018, it will be Japan's 37th year of attempting to offset the growing aging population resulting in failure. This year has been Japan's all-time low of children under 14 in the country, at 12.3% of the total country's population. Aside from economic and work/personal life ratio, many Japanese men have decided to step away from real people dating and into simulated women. A gamer, under the username "Sal9000," married his DS video game simulated girlfriend in 2009 at a video game convention with thousands of witnesses and a priest to marry them off. The simulated girlfriend was off a dating simulation game called LovePlus. (Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/6651021/Japanese-gamer-marries-Nintendo-DS-character.html) This has been an upward moving trend, with companies creating a holographic character to wake you up, control your lights, send you messages throughout the day, etc. It may not be out of reason for people to start preferring simulated women with the age of Virtual Reality and what not.

Intertextual material: First, I would like to point out how finely structured this sentence is. The clever use of comparing the newly introduced dating services, "meet," with the retail/merchandise markets, "meat" is by far one of my favorite lines from this article. As for intertextual material, the author's argument of how algorithms shape personal relationships in today's society closely mirrors that of the "The Tinder Trap." Dating websites market the individual, which ends up becoming numbers. In the Tinder Trap experiment, men were rated, marketed, and "bought" according to their statistics. This includes a height requirement of over 6 feet tall, ethnicity requirement of no Indians or Asians, athletic ability, etc. Dating apps have turned people into mere objects to swipe right to buy or swipe left to pass up on. The Tinder Trap sought to make the message that dating apps have made relationships superficial, which is a similar point that this article is making as well. The author states "We're starting to look at relationships as ephemeral bonds that can be undone almost as easily as pushing the delete key on our computers." These relationships that are created online have become surface level. If something doesn't work out, people end up moving on rather than working on it, thereby making it "frictionless." These two literary texts have shed light on how algorithms have made it easier for us to meet people, but worse to make meaningful relationships. Therefore, despite getting what you want, it's not actually what you need.

Personal Reaction: Behavioral targeted advertising is one of the main modes of generating quick and easy revenue from sponsors and other companies. This has proven to increase consumer buy rates and has outlived demographic targeting by appealing to specific habits, interests, etc. These advertisements no longer aim to highlight key features of the product but rather appeal to emotions. As a result of the success, social media networks are constantly monitoring our clicks in order to gather objective data about us. I believe this is one of the most disturbing things about the internet; the constant feeling that you are being watched- and you are. After visiting Amazon and browsing through some products, I will immediately see those product advertisements when going on Facebook. After speaking about BTS (Korean Boy band) with my peers, I will get a notification for the BTS concert happening in Oakland despite never having played a song from them before. This experience as a consumer is honestly terrifying, the fact that I'm being tracked despite not wanting to be tracked. It's not really self-tracking considering it's not "myself" doing it; unless self tracking actually means someone tracking myself. However, from an intellectual basis, I would say companies have really picked the most vulnerable aspect of mankind and turned it into a marketing opportunity for themselves. Despite being angry at the situation, I have to give them credits for cracking the "code" and being able to find someone that gets them more money. It's impressive really.