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Article Review
Jean Twenge, an American psychology professor, was born in 1971. Twenge, being a psychologist, has been researching generational differences, development speed, life goals, and work values. Apart from being a professor at San Diego State University, she is a consultant, public speaker, and author. One of the articles she has written is the have smartphone destroyed a generation? This article was published in the Atlantic.
The thesis statement in this article is the impact phones have on the young generation. This article talks about how millennial youths are more familiar with their phone than ordinary people. The article mentions many facts course by smartphones, such as the vulnerability of youths. In her writing, she has evidence of her numerous data collection topic proving why her case is true. The author conducted data collection, which shows a drop in sexual activities, dating, and sleep after the iPhone phone was released in 2007.
In this article, Twenge interview young teenagers Athena. From this interview, the teenager’s view on life and the impact on the phone is well elaborated. Athena talks of how she is always on her phone, even when she is with their friends. There is minimal interaction between her and her friends since each of them is on their phones. Twenge comes to the conclusion that it would be impossible to restrict technology entirely. This is because even toddlers use phones and other electronics. However, there is a need for restriction on the time teenagers have to use phones and other devices. This would make a huge difference in the reduction of harmful behavior.
Twenge has a well-written article that had many effects since she made use of factual information from data and research she conducted besides talking of issues everyone, especially the youth, can relate to.
First, the author of this article interviews a teenage girl, Athena, where they talk about how phones influence her life. This approach makes this article more approachable, more so to the adolescent audience. If this article were to be read by another teenage girl, they would feel more interested because someone of their age had an input. They can easily relate the information from the article and their life. This is an essential part of the piece, which adds relatability, pathos, and credibility. She goes ahead to give people born between 1995 and 2012 a name iGen. She believes that smartphones and the internet have shaped the life of this generation. She goes ahead to talk about the emotional as well as behavioral changes experienced in teenagers. These changes started to emerge after around 50 percent of the American population possessed smartphones. All these are thing which can be related to what is happening in the world today. Many of the youth and even adults are very busy on their phones. Some of the social media pages, such as Instagram, Facebook, and snap chat, are commonly used daily. They are replacing the old way of interaction where people were physically communicating and interacting.
Twenge conveys messages in the article by use of relatable information, accurate data, and credible sources. The use of graphs and statistical data in her article gives are the audience the actual situation and the problem caused by the use of smartphones in teenagers. In addition to the data and graph, her conversation with Athena helps her article get the pathos. Although smartphones are the leading cause of behavioral changes in teenagers’ lives, Twenge acknowledges that other factors contribute to the same. This makes her work more credible. Twenge is very credible and effective since she is able to pass across her points to an indented audience effectively, clearly, and with intelligent material. In her article, she comes across genuine concerns for teens. Most of her evidence shows how smartphones are negatively affecting the social life of teens. Most of them are becoming less active, less interactive. They are even closer to their phones than they are to ordinary people. This is a genuine concern she comes across, which affects youths.
In this article, Twenge talks of how to screen activities are associated with less happiness and how no screen activities s are associated with more joy ( Twenge2). This seems to be the correct argument but not to the degree in which this author implies. The author means that increased use of smartphones leads to depression in teens since they do not involve themselves in other activities. There is increased abuse of drugs in high school, and depression and misbehavior cases are on the rise. She also talks of how teens nowadays do not go to the town pol, basket courts, and other events but instead stay home using their phones. The author, however, does not mention how urbanization has affected kids today. There could be many reasons as to why teens don’t get social events apart from smartphones.
Twenge chooses overgeneralization language when describing the iGen generation in her entire article. She quotes Athena several in her writing. She uses her to show how all kids think about smartphones (Twenge, 2). There is a lack of views from other kids and sources on the same aspect.
Twenge uses rarely uses humor in her article to communicate with her audience. She uses humor when describing how teens casually avoid dating. This is not common in her article, although she clearly communicates to her audience.
In conclusion, Twenge decides to use evidence and data to pass her information to the targeted audience instead. This can be seen from her interview, graphs, and statistic data she used continuously in the article. With the series of examples and facts given in the article, the information is more elaborate and clear to the audience despite giving the reference points. This evidence brings out a positive ethos of her writing. However, she does not major on using feelings and humor to convey her messages since there is a rare occasion where the two are used. In her conclusion, she gives a solution to her problems discussed in the paper. She believes that there is a need to limit the time teens use on screens and let them interact more. She believes this would reduce misbehaviors and crime.
Work cited
Twenge, Jean M. “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” The Atlantic, September 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/