The conflict in the text “An Ode to the User-Friendly Pencil” by Bonnie Laing was a man vs technology conflict, I think this because throughout the whole text the protagonist was against technology. For example “ To start with the purchase decision, you don’t have to ask for a bank loan to buy a pencil. Since most pencils are not manufactured in Japan, you don’t feel you’re upsetting the nation’s balance of trade by buying one.” This is something she states in the texts, one of the reasons a pencil wins over a computer but she is not mention some very important points. one of the points she left out was the fact that pencils break which means it's something you need to repurchase many times, and money does add up. Although computers are very expensive you really only need to buy it once and take care of it and it will last you many years.

She talks about people losing their jobs to machinery.  This can make the reader pity/relate to the people who have lost their jobs. Losing your job to a computer can completely ruin your life, if you can't find another job. She also, compares how smart you are to parts of metal with a programmed software. Both these points can make someone feel inferior to a computer. This is how Laing makes the reader feel emotion when reading her text, to help you agree. This is how she uses pathos. 

Computers are very important and help you get your work done faster, but there are still a lot of cons about it. You can be easily distracted because there are a lot of things to do on a computer like watching videos, playing games, and many other things. Pencils are there when your computer stops working, when there is no electricity there is no way to get your computer running but you can still use your pencil. Computers are really useful in many other ways but there is always going to be times when a pencil is superior than a computer.