Critical Analysis Of Have Smartphones Destroyed A Generation By Jean M. Twenge

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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. Quoting and investigating a teenage girl, statistical data that she has collected over the years, and using the common knowledge of the different time periods to very persuasively inform her audience of her opinion.
Criterion 1 Twenge uses numbers and graphs to very clearly
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The teenager interviewed is thirteen year-old Athena from Houston, Texas. It was stated in the article that Athena has had an iPhone since she was 11 and she gives a completely different view point of the argument. Twenge gives statistics and basic information is a logical and explaining pattern. Athena talks about how most teenagers from the younger generation behave and feel about life with a smartphone. Athena’s words are heavily used in the beginning to really bring to the attention of the audience that the problem is serious. Then it goes to common sense and data for a little while to give the article a solid foundation. The glimpses that Twenge gives of the teenage mind and the reasoning behind their actions is a very believable and powerful argument. This is especially so because it this information comes from an actual teenager that is part of the younger generation that is being discussed. Twenge is using this is a very wise way by not over using it but instead interspersing in within his writing to allow the information to have its full effect. Another writing that uses this beautifully is called, “Bring Powerful Writing Strategies into Your Classroom! Why and How” by, Karen R. Harris. In the final notes of this scholarly reviewed article states, “we interview our students and …show more content…
“This article examines thus the role of creative writing in understanding journalism. It argues that non-academic writing – poetry in this case – can play a much more significant part in journalism research than that of an entertaining genre for disseminating a study’s findings, mainly to audiences beyond academia” (Archetti). This is a whole article made just by contrasting two different methods of a subject. This same thing is being done in Twenge’s article and both are expertly done and adds great power to their

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