Age of Earthquakes Written Response

The first thing I noticed when reading The Age of Earthquakes was the intentional simplicity through the black and white color, simple font, and short syntax. But as I continued reading, I noticed that this simplicity is countered by a plethora of informal format, sarcasm, and paradox. This contradictory formatting emphasizes the motif of irony. I also found it interesting that the author develops a humorous tone throughout the book despite its dark implications (perhaps to make the audience more receptive). Naturally, this paradoxical nature makes many of the book’s concepts quite confusing. For example, the book offers solutions to certain modern problems - such as leaving small gaps of inactive downtime between tasks to make life seem longer - but that hope is crushed by suggesting the inevitability of self-destruction among humans. This use of the slippery slope logical fallacy to predict the events of the possible future is overly catastrophic in my opinion. It is frustrating for an optimistic person such as myself to read that the human race is inevitably doomed beyond repair. I did appreciate, however, that the conclusions drawn by the book helped me to understand how modern technology currently impacts my life and the lives of those around me. One such conclusion is that we feel lonely when offline since loneliness stems from the inability to communicate important things. But because being online is a solitary activity, we feel just as isolated when online. Another connection that I see in everyday life is the “bored people crave war” conclusion, evidenced in the profusion of petty arguments in the comment sections of various social media platforms. But, if the author truly believes that humans are doomed, why make the effort to explain the phenomenon via book? Perhaps the author implemented such catastrophic imagery in order motivate change.

300 words