The Overly Documented Life- AJ Jacobs

AJ Jacobs writes an essay called “The Overly Documented life,” and is now by far one of my favorite essays I’ve read. He portrays the benefits and the dangers of digitally recording his everyday life utilizing stories, pictures, and an interacting tone. Technology is continuing to advance in many ways that can benefit our society. For example, technology can provide easy access to information, improve communication, and encourages innovation. However, as a result of technology advancement, we suffer from simple things such as competency, loneliness, and laziness. AJ Jacobs perfectly experiments the use of technology and questions whether overly documenting one’s life has more pros than cons. AJ Jacobs utilizes pathos in his stories to depict the negative effects of recording every moment of his life. He recreates the scene in his writing describing a fight that he had with his wife. They had a category 5 fight over who ordered Mexican food. After a couple days, he showed her a recording of their argument seeing who was right, in order to “improve their marriage. “Seconds after the footage was replayed, they got even more mad at each other. Through this story, AJ Jacobs implements sympathy into his audience because ruining a marriage with a loved one is sorrowful. Furthermore, the pictures of AJ Jacob’s wife upset enforces more emotions within the audience. However, there was an incidence where three people got into a conversation on how to pronounce the word Qatar. Afterward the blonde woman was worried she was overly rude to a man. AJ Jacobs states that he had a recording of the conversation, later sent it to her. She was not rude to him at all, and emailed him “Thanks for making my day!” This not only portrays the benefits of recording daily life, but it also implements gladness into the emotions of the audience.  In addition, pictures within the essay keep his readers interacted with his writing. Pictures of his son trying to lie about not putting food on a chess board promotes humor. Although AJ Jacobs does list both pros and cons of recording his everyday life, in his conclusion, he states that he is a camera. His memory is getting worse and worse because of his reliance on technology. There are benefits to recording every moment, but he is becoming a part of his camera.