Have Smartphones Destroyed A Generation? By Jean M. Twenge

Improved Essays
Many writers post articles about this new generation destroying department stores, diamonds, golf, and more. Jean M. Twenge’s article titled “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” appears to take on the same point of view. However, she focused on behaviors and emotional health. She avoided bashing the post-Millennial generation (referred to as iGen) and instead studied the effects of the smartphone. Twenge completed research to show that, while physically safer, the new generation of teenagers is suffering mentally.
When it comes to the thesis, two sentences capture the author’s intention. Twenge argued that the “arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions
…show more content…
Some statistics were more prominent and therefore more effective towards building the author’s argument. Since Twenge’s theses argued negative effects on mental health, her data about loneliness, depression, and suicide were vital. Teens spend many hours on their smartphones and social media; research is not needed to verify that. However, research has shown that the popular leisure activity does not bring overall happiness to its users. More time spent on screen activities generates troubling emotions in teens. The author pointed out a high spike in loneliness in 2013. Unhappiness and loneliness leads to depression and this shocking fact: eighth-graders with heavy social media use “increase their risk of depression by 27 percent” (Twenge 10). On the contrary, sports or religious activities cut it significantly. It was saddening to hear girls ending their lives at 12 or 14 before it starts and raised questions why people continue to use social media if it created …show more content…
The teen suicide rate, according to Twenge, “for the first time in 24 years… was higher than the teen homicide rate” (11). I reread her statement a few times. While the decreasing homicide rate was excellent news, rising suicide rates are not a positive replacement. Twenge did mention that technology is but one of many causes to suicide, but content on social media like cyberbullying encourages smartphones as a reason.
Not every piece of data effectively strengthened Twenge’s theses. The driving statistics and a decline in working adolescents did not fit the theme of technology-related statistics. While interesting, the decreases resulted not from smartphones, but more from a change of the times. The economy and parenting styles impacted these teenage behaviors, along with location. As urban areas expand, less teenagers need to drive because public transportation is available.
Throughout high school, I never felt like my experience matched the status quo or what was expected to happen. I chose to stay home instead of attending a party. If I stayed up late at night, it was from completing a homework assignment. The article surprised me when it claimed “18-year-olds now act more like 15-year-olds” (Twenge 7). It relieved me, as well, because it demonstrated it was not unordinary to go out less. And barring the last years of high school, I traveled with my parents instead of going places alone, similar to

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely” is an article that try to explains how social media can affect us and make us to feel lonely; the writer gives examples to support his article purpose, and he gives some statistics details how world is changed from time and people that to use internet more than before. The article begins with short story about YVETTE VICKERS, she was famous actor for horror movies, and they her found dead near her computer, they assume cause of her death that she is lonely. Next, the article starts to describe how Facebook affecting on people with different reason, health, religion, and culture, people start to live lonely and the research state that loneliness is psychological state, marriage and belief in god is not a treatment for loneliness, today they use a question as tool to measure the loneliness. Finally, he concluded that loneliness created by us, and being happy is created by us, and we choose to be socially connected or to be lonely, a advantage of Facebook is to avoid mess of human interaction, happiness is not everything, valuing the good grade help you to…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Teenagers spend so much of their lives engulfed in the world of social media: to the point of addiction. The dangers that smartphones carry, especially for teens, is the topic of discussion in Jean M. Twenge’s article, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” from The Atlantic. More specifically, she researches how smartphones affect common life skills in young adults. This is a concerning issue, since many kids are granted their first smartphone before they reach their teenage years.…

    • 1178 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Jean Twenge’s article “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” opens the mind to many situations and statistics that we never even knew had such a huge effect on teens. In her article, she has research on suicide, depression, and maturing rates from past generations to those of the iGens. Twenge uses many shocking claims to catch the readers eye and consider different ways to help these teens. While more adolescents prefer to be at home in bed on their phones, than out with their friends it’s safe to say the iGens are on edge of a “mental health crisis.”…

    • 859 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Is technology really taking over the world or are we just going crazy about it? They’re many people over the world concert about technology taking over the world but there’s two point of views presented in “Technology Taking Over?” by Yzzy Gonzalez and in “The Parent Trap: How Teens Lost Ability to Socialize “by Clive Thompson. One issue is waking up to see your phone and what happen while you were sleeping. The other issue is why parents aren’t giving kids more freedom to actually socialize with friends.…

    • 1082 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “A 14-year old girl was found hanged in her bedroom after receiving hate messages on her ask.fm page where strangers told her to cut herself, drink bleach, and kill herself. In this social media platform, the users are allowed to ask questions while remaining anonymous” (“Stories of Bullying”). The Internet has millions of suicide stories, similar to the one about this 14-year-old girl, all due to social media. Social media is the new trend and continues to grow. When out in public, it is almost impossible not to see people on their smart phones, checking email, facebook, ask fm, twitter, pinterest, myspace, tumblr, snapchat, or texts.…

    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    We all believe that the next person is living the perfect life. Social media has given us this skewed perception that everybody else is out living the American Dream. Social media, depression, and suicide, there is now evidence that there may be a link. Association for Psychological Science discovered that self-reported incidents of depression and suicide rates among teenagers spiked between 2010 and 2015, during the time, social media surged in popularity. By far the biggest change in individuals’ lives was the huge increase in smartphone ownership and the time spent online, mainly social media platforms.…

    • 1663 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Today, over 76% of teenagers use social media and 94% of teens check their phone daily. Tennagers sepnd too much time with and on their phones. This causes them to miss real life connections, it can lead to think poorly about themselves, and it gives them a feeling that they have a lot of true friends on social media when in fact they don’t. Technology seems to be connecting us but it’s separating and isolating us more than it’s doing any form of good.…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Annotated Bibliography Twenge, Jean M. “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 4 Aug. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/. The author Jean M. Twenge is a professor of psychology at San Diego State. The article was about smartphones and the effect that they have had on society as a whole. It pointed out that people feel more comfortable behind a screen then they do in real life and the problem that it is creating today. This article was really helpful to me.…

    • 1260 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation,” is an article written by Jean M. Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University. Twenge has been studying generational differences for 25 years. Jean M. Twenge likes to call babies born from 1995 to 2012 “generation I” because of I phones, or smartphones. In this article, she states Generation I babies have grown up with smartphones, and because of that, they have some distinct differences that previous generations do not possess. Some of those differences include decreased car accidents, distant relationships with others, less outdoor time, and being not as drawn to alcohol than previous generations.…

    • 346 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Have Smartphones Destroyed Generations?” is the question Jean M. Twenge asks in his article in The Atlantic Magazine. The article highlights the influence of smartphones on the present generation. In the article, the author, proves his claims by comparing survey data of two different generations, the GenX and the iGen. The author declares that the current generation is safer physically, but are on the verge of a mental-health crisis. The article lists all the problems the American teens are facing because the excessive use of smartphones and how those problems are destroying their health.…

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Introduction Recently I have read an online article called, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” written by Jean M. Twenge. As the title portrays, the article is about technology’s impact on the younger generation. Twenge states, “I’ve been researching generational differences for 25 years, starting when I was a 22-year-old doctoral student in psychology” (Twenge). She goes on in the article to state her opinion about smartphones and to support it in a variety of ways.…

    • 963 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The youth’s daily interactions with cell phones, computers, and video games are all proof of this. However, Turkle goes beyond a simple confirmation of this trend. She provides evidence of it and explains why…

    • 1503 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Are Smartphones taking over people’s lives? In todays age most everyone has some sort of smart phone at his or her fingertips on a daily basis. How did this revolution start and how has it influenced an entire generation of people? Many people believe these smartphones are no harm and should be used as much as possible due to the amount of information at your fingertips while others believe it should be limited as it causes people to have less of an attention span. Whichever side you are on we will see how this device has taken over the world.…

    • 1035 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The interactions with others, behaviour, and personal health, all have been affected because of the distractedness of social media. In the journal article Distracted by Raymond Gozzi, he mentions why teens use electronic devices: “They use electronic contracts to avoid face-to-face interactions. It is easier to text someone a short message, and get texts back, than to actually talk to them” (Gozzi 111). Through the use of social media, people can pick and choose what they want to involve themselves in, whether it be conversations, events, etc. By avoiding face-to-face interactions, they begin to lack the social skills necessary in life.…

    • 1151 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “ Users aged between 15 and 19 spend at least 3 hours per day on average using platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.” The first thing they do in the morning is to check their phone to see if there any new message. The phone and the social media have too much effect to young people 's normal life. To distress them from the school life and the study they suppose to do. People use the social media app on phone to do all of the communicate and far away from the real world.…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays