Editorial Cartoon

Editorial Cartoon:
http://thecomicnews.com/edtoons/archive/2009/0722/technology/03.php



     This cartoon brings up one of the dangers of technology.  I refer to it as "disctracted verbing".  It often takes the forms of distracted driving or distracted listening.  It has many other forms such as distracted talking, sleeping, and even eating.  Everyone says that distracted verbing is dumb, and complain about those who do it.  This is often hypocritical because everyone has the urge to do it.  Cutting unnecessary electronic time out of our lives is much easier said than done.  You can even show people that what they are doing is life-threatening, and they will continue to go on doing it.  It hasn't caught up with them yet, so they have no reason to believe it ever will.
     I think this cartoon is effective at getting it's point across.  It uses two frames to form a simple case of situational irony.  The same point could have been made in one frame, but the author used two to throw the reader off track.  By drawing the outside of the car in the first frame, the cartoonist makes the reader assume that the person in the moving car is not talking on a cell phone.  This is done by the phrasing of the words above the moving car.  When it is revealed in the second frame that the man in the moving car is on a cell phone, the reader laughs, because he contradicts himself, and the reader did not see it coming.  It concisely shows what the cartoonist thinks about the topic in a humorous way.  Also on the inside of the car, it is obvious that the driver is an older man who is slouched in his chair.  He gives the impression of insensitivity just from the way he sits and his facial expression.  The only thing I think it lacks is power.  I think it needs to be a little more serious with regards to the fact that the person died from cell phone usage.  As is, it just sort of makes me laugh and move on.  To really change people's mind, there needs to be a serious twist at the beginning or end.  This would make the driver's comment sobering, and meaningful.  If the cartoonist's goal was just to make people laugh about the hypocrisy of the every day man, then he did a good job.