As a society has increasingly portrayed the notion of beauty via social media and celebrities, the action has gradually altered the perception of people to believe that thinness is the definition of beauty, which could cause teenagers to encounter with eating disorders as claimed in Dugan’s article. However, the purpose of this essay is to identify illogical fallacies in the article “Eating disorders soar among teens - and social media is to blame”, which was written by Emily Dugan and published in 2014 by the Independent. Those fallacies include overgeneralization and slippery slope as found in paragraph 4 and 7 respectively.
In the beginning, Dugan claims that the potential cause of eating disorders among teenagers may derive from the increase …show more content…
Micali in paragraph 7 contains ineffective evidences, as quoted “Social media is very dangerous; it is the main cause of teenager problems today, from doing badly in school to pregnancy to suicide. It is the most dangerous modern technology.” A logical fallacy made in this sentence is slippery slope. Slippery slope occurs when a person assumes that once an incident begins the incident will be uncontrollable, and therefore will lead to negative consequences. What Dr. Micali claims is illogical according to what the Office for National Statistics states, in which the rate of teenage pregnancy in London and Wales has hit it lowest record since 1969 by 13% drop (Meikle & Ashraf, 2015). And the Office for National Statistics as well states that the rate of suicide among teenagers from 15 to 19-years-old shows a slight decline since 1981 (Owen, 2014). Thus, what Dr. Macali states is highly contradictory in itself according to her claims of the increase in pregnancy and suicide rate. In addition, the reason why paragraph 7 contains slippery slope is because Dr.Micali slips her statement of students doing badly in school to the point that they will commit suicide, which implied as this issue can lead to lethal consequence, otherwise she could have shown the statistics of increase rate to support her
In the beginning, Dugan claims that the potential cause of eating disorders among teenagers may derive from the increase …show more content…
Micali in paragraph 7 contains ineffective evidences, as quoted “Social media is very dangerous; it is the main cause of teenager problems today, from doing badly in school to pregnancy to suicide. It is the most dangerous modern technology.” A logical fallacy made in this sentence is slippery slope. Slippery slope occurs when a person assumes that once an incident begins the incident will be uncontrollable, and therefore will lead to negative consequences. What Dr. Micali claims is illogical according to what the Office for National Statistics states, in which the rate of teenage pregnancy in London and Wales has hit it lowest record since 1969 by 13% drop (Meikle & Ashraf, 2015). And the Office for National Statistics as well states that the rate of suicide among teenagers from 15 to 19-years-old shows a slight decline since 1981 (Owen, 2014). Thus, what Dr. Macali states is highly contradictory in itself according to her claims of the increase in pregnancy and suicide rate. In addition, the reason why paragraph 7 contains slippery slope is because Dr.Micali slips her statement of students doing badly in school to the point that they will commit suicide, which implied as this issue can lead to lethal consequence, otherwise she could have shown the statistics of increase rate to support her