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Precis Example for "But Enough About You"

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Precis Example for "But Enough About You"
In “Enough About You” (2006), Brian Williams argues that people today are very self-absorbed and that media and culture revolve around this way of thinking.

He develops his idea by pointing out that America today is not the same as it used to be (“Diaries once sealed under lock and key are now called blogs. Intimacies that were once whispered into the phone are now announced unabashedly into cell phones…”), especially because the “culture” nowadays surrounds the self-centered way of thinking through technology (“…television networks that already agree with your views, iPods that play only music you already know you like, Internet programs ready to filter out all but the news you want to hear”).

He exaggerates and mocks how self-oriented people are these days with ethos (“We've raised a generation of Americans on a mantra of love and the importance of self as taught by brightly colored authority figures with names like Barney and Elmo”) in order to amplify the consequence that comes from being egotistic: vital information will be ignored and every one will be ill-informed; cluelessness is not essential for a democracy.

Williams’ audience is both men and women in this modern era who are involved with technology, and his tone comes across as disappointed and earnest (“The danger just might be that we miss the next great book or the next great idea, or that we fail to meet the next great challenge…because we are too busy celebrating ourselves and listening to the same tune we already know by heart”).

Williams, Brian. “But Enough about You.” TIME Magazine 25 Dec

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