What’s wrong with this advertisement? On what planet are people when they think that a child, once amazed and involved, bemused and interacting with the world from the seat of their pram, needs cajoling and quietening with a phone.
What about this image – how regularly do we see people on their phones, in amongst their friends, on a date, out with their family and not talking, laughing, interacting.
We live in a culture now where smartphone addiction is a real and dangerous reality. read the article blow. Using current day information, examples, statistics and evidence, it shows that teenagers are more at risk than ever of mental illness due, in part, to these insidious devices. It is all well and good to be looking at teenagers of the past and from where it is that they arise, but what about now? Who are the teenagers of today?
In reading this article, one comes to understand how teenagers may share characteristics over time (rebellion, recalcitrance, identity crises, existential questioning, a resistance towards conservative paternalism) but also how they may be subject to specific contextual influences:
“All this [increase in mental health concerns and self harm] followed a period during the late-1990s and early 2000s when rates of adolescent depression and suicide mostly held steady or declined. “These increases are huge—possibly unprecedented,” says Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University [who] examines how today’s super-connected teens may be less happy and less prepared for adulthood than past generations.”
The question then is: How are teens today different that teens of the past? And, what contextual influences have led to this difference?
As you read this article, what we might interpret as a feature article, an opinion / research article, an interpretive piece of writing, we must also ask, How is it that the piece positions readers to respond? In this sense, and here you might use this article as example for your work on metalanguage; go to the metalanguage list posted last week list and see which devices are being used in this article to elicit a particular response.
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