http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/10-things-you-dont-know-about-teens-and-social-networking-2527367.html
Please visit this link and read through the article. This article discusses the effects of social networking on pre-teens and teens.
In your discussion, please briefly describe the argument the author is making about social networking and examine how she is trying to persuade you.
Questions to consider:
1. Who is the primary audience for this article (consider its location/context on the web)? Who is the ideal/target audience (who is she trying to persuade)? Provide evidence.
2. How does the author attempt to persuade you? Does she succeed? Is the author biased? Provide evidence.
3. How does this relate to our course theme of "private vs. public?" (besides the fact that it relates to Facebook)
(Tips: Refer to "Consider the Following" section of more advice about analyzing sources. Read through all the posts before you post your own comment. Add something new to the conversation.)
It seems like the author has brought to the forefront many negative facets of social networking. Most, if not all, of the direct quotes she has from young adults are about how Facebook lowers their self esteem and how they have become addicted to the social network. Although she does quickly mention a positive of social networking, the overall feel of the article is that it is a warning to parents of young teenagers about the effects of Facebook.
ReplyDeleteThe author definitely seems to be trying to appeal to our already great knowledge of how tough it is to be a teenager and being judged at all times; possibly trying to gain sympathy from parents so they feel as though they need to implement these changes even though their child may not be having a bad social networking experience. Along the aspect of private versus public, this article seems to show how an open relationship(public) between parents and children is becoming more and more closed(private) with the usage of online privacy within social networks. Anyone have any thoughts as to why she doesn't use many positive examples of experiences with social networking?
In response to Tyler’s question, it seems as though the author doesn’t include many positive examples of social networking because many parents could use them as an excuse as to why they do not need to intervene in their children’s online lives. I believe her strategy of quoting only negative comments was to make the increasing use of social networks sound more extreme to parents therefore encouraging them to be more aware of their children’s time on the Internet and how it affects them. With this in mind, I think she was targeting parents of teens by making Facebook sound very addicting and a subject that needs to be talked about.
ReplyDeleteI was also intrigued by the author’s choice of quotes. I noticed that the comments were only quoted from adolescents between the ages of 13 and 15. By strictly including young teenager’s extreme views about Facebook, I felt it was harder to relate to, but as a young adult it is still a concern for many people in my age group as well. This article seems to aim to alarm parents about the emotional and mental dangers these sites could cause their children. With this in mind, quoting this age group was a good strategy to catch the attention of the parents of teenagers by showing how other teens negatively feel about social networking.
I am agree with Lauren's view about this article seems to warn parents about their children's emotional and mental problem caused by these networking sites, but I have further view about this article which is the children's emotional and mental dangers might be caused by their parients. The networking sites like facebook, they are just a kind of tools to connect people, to help people communication instantly. I think most of people will use them properly,but most of the teenagers would abuse them, be addicated to them because they don't have enough slef-control ability and adequate orientation of using tech teached by their parents.Parents should have the responsibility to guide their children how to use these technologies properly.Another reason why I say these dangers caused by parent is less communication between children and parent. Why Katie like to take self-pictures, post them on facebook and look forward to the comment? Because her parents might be ignorant. Why Samantha will feel depressed when she doesn't get a lot of "Likes" on her photos? Because her parents might not give her enough good words. In the article, Professor Larry D. Rosen offers his advice. It is clearly to narrate that all his advice are about how parents should do. If parents don't do something wrong, why Professor offers his advice to them.
ReplyDeleteI think the primary audience is the american parents whose children are addicted to the social networking sites or lose themselves in the internet world.The author is trying to persuade parents what they should do to step in their children's life properly. In author's words " don't hand them your iPhone to play with for the first time without starting a simple discussion about the appropriate use of technology" and how to help their children get rid of the addiction. Don't give them a big punishment at the beginning.
ReplyDeleteThe author seems to use all the negative example to persuade me the networking sites maybe not good enough to teenages, so parents should take action to restrict their children's time-wasting online activity，but all the example are teenages, therefore I guess the author wants to express that all children's wrong behaviors are caused by parents. In the article, the author cited from Professor Larry D. Rosen 's advice to parents may be the best evidence to support my assumption.
After reading this article, I summarize an interesting phenomenon which is what you want to obtain something from the public is what you can not get from your private aspect.For example, if I don't get some good words for my new hairstyle from my parent, I will take picture and post it online, look forward to"Like" or some good comments.
Excellent start guys! I encourage everyone to go back and review the quotes again one more time. Are these *actual* quotes from real teenagers? Be sure to read the fine print.
ReplyDeleteThe presented quotes are from the cast of "Facebook Me". "Facebook Me" is a play, which was written by teens and trys to show what teenager do in front of their computers. But because the quotes are from the cast of this play, I would say that their statements are biased. These children who perform in "Facebook Me" have dealed with this topic (teens and facebook) in relation with their role in this play. That means they probably did not only develope their own thoughts, but also have said things that they picked up while participating in this play. Furthermore it could also be possible, that they want to present the play's message with their comments on social networks. Finally I want to point out that these teens' quotes are biased, because these teens participate in a play about facebook. Comments from diffrent children, maybe from diffrent schools and diffrent cities, would be more authentic.
DeleteThe primary audience that the author was trying to aim at is probably parents that have kid around the age of 13 to 15. There was a few ways that the article told me that. First, the whole section telling parents how to teach and control their kids so they don’t become what the kids that the author had become. Second, the first sentence of 10 things you don’t know about teens and social networking states “...do you know where your children are?” This clearly points out that the audience the author wants are parents. The third piece of evidence is by putting all negative comments about social networking. The author made social networking sound like the worse addiction that a teen can have. With the knowledge that most teens have about social networking, they will not see themselves as the kids that the author had posted. But parents on the other hand will take the article as if it was real. The primary reason why the parents will think that what the article is true is because most parents don’t know as much about social networking as they grew up in a world without it. Other reasons why parents will take the article seriously are because of all of the quotes that the author had posted are all bias that the parents will not pick up on. By reading all of the negative comments parents will think that social networking is harming their kids. But teenagers, on the other hand, with their knowledge of social networking will not be persuaded. Adding on to what Jiachu said, it might be a problem with the parents at the first place. And if the parents read the article they might further invade their child’s privacy. As the professor had stated the parents need to start young. At this age (13 onward) it is hard to change a child’s behavior. And if the parents don’t do things right it will hurt their child by invading their privacy as they have come to adapt to it.
ReplyDeletefirstly, after reading this article, i still don't know what are the "10 things". Secondly,the author wants to tell parents that it is a very severe problem that teens are addicted to social networking.but i feel she exaggerates the seriousness of the problem.i don't feel that way. Thirdly, all the teens involved in the conversation were girls, according to the names given. i suspect that conversation is not true. And the author writes "I recently sat down with the cast...", so there is only one researcher, which may indicate that the sample size is to small too represent the whole population. Lastly, some of the suggestions are lame, like check text per 15 minutes during family meal.
ReplyDeleteall in all, i don't fully trust this article.
This article is found under the "Parenting" tab on Yahoo. After reading the article, one can conclude that specifically the article was written for parents of teens who are addicted to technology to read. All of the girls they interviewed we're between 13 and 15 years old but is also trying to reach out to younger parents, or expecting parents. One point the article makes is to "Start young". The author goes on to give five more suggestions on how to be a good parent in this fast changing technology era. In trying to persuade the reader that they should follow what the author is writing, the author gives the reader a list of things quoted from a professor who is an expert in "psychology of technology". Some of the items seam simple, but I'm sure they would be harder to implement.
ReplyDeleteI feel as though this article is directed at parents of "middle-school aged" children. The article is very dramatic but I think that it had to be dramatic to catch the attention of parents. Having a younger sister and brother, I can see how technology is different for them. I think out generation just missed the cut off for the "technology obsessed" era. Our generation focuses a lot on technology but it seems to be more essential to younger children now. My younger sister was the last of her friends to get a facebook and she is only twelve. Some of the pictures and comments that are posted by her friends seem extremely inappropriate to me. If parents checked up on there children's social networking sites, I am sure they would be shocked by what the saw. I think this article is great for parents to see because they need to be shocked. It is so "normal" now for young teens to be on the computer constantly. It seems as though parents expect it. Hopefully some parents will limit the time their children spend on the internet after reading this article.
ReplyDelete"Facebook Me, an original play written and performed by teens at the upcoming New York International Fringe Festival is a revealing exploration of what's going on behind millions of young people's computer screens.
ReplyDeleteI recently sat down with the cast (whose names have been changed below) and asked them to share about their experiences with social networking."
This is in the opening section of the article. How does this change your perception of the comments? There are also hyperlinks in this paragraph (if you visit the link). Have any of you taken a look?
(You need to be reading this material carefully and looking for important details like this!)
In response to Brittany, I think you made a really good point on how our generation just missed the cut when it pertains to over-obsessing on the internet and not seeing the light of day because of it. Although many high school and college-aged young adults spend more time than they should, they are grossly outdone by the tweens of today. The cast of the play is a small example of the kind of demographic that this article is aimed towards. Not that any of us college students spend WAY too much time on Facebook, it is important to examine the ridiculous amount of time that younger generations spend on it and what that might be saying about being raised/raising a kid in today's society.
ReplyDeleteAlthough many of you think this article is strongly biased and disagree with what the author has to say, I have to say I somewhat agree with most of the things on the article. I personally spend a lot of time on Facebook, and I find out what is going on in world by looking at people’s statuses. Also I have a 12-year-old sibling who loves social networking. Every time I see her on Facebook, it seems like her friends comment or reply back to what she said within a very short period of time like a minute or two. It tells me that many of her peers spend a lot of time on Facebook.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I want to point out that this author does exaggerate her point of view like Yi said. First, the gender and the age group of the interviewees are very narrow, which makes me think that this data pool does not sound relevant to the title of the article. It should have been “10 Things you don’t know about teenage GIRLS and social networking” instead because of such a skewed data pool. Second, she starts off the article by mentioning the cast and the professor, people with authority, which shows that she is trying to persuade readers because they tend to believe what doctors/professors/professionals say. If she started off saying “I recently sat down with a teenage girl…,” or “I also spoke with a parent of teen…,” this article might have been not as persuasive.
Also, this author concentrates ONLY on the fact that these teen girls are ADDICTED to social networking, rather than talking about what may have caused these teens to spend more time on social networking. Not just teens, but many of us communicate with others through Facebook because it’s one of the fastest and easiest ways to reach people. For example, in school, people communicate with their group members through e-mails or social networking cites due to time conflicts. Therefore, I also want to make a point that although it may seem that these girls are addicted to social networking, in the reality, they HAVE TO because it’s one way to finish what they got to do.
Since there is a ‘parenting’ tag on the top of the page, the essay should be mainly written for parents. From the paragraph, the author interviewed many teens whose age ranges from 13~15 years old who are addicted in the social network. In the end of the essay, the author quotes Pr. Rosen’s words to warn all the children who are likely to get the device to surf online to avoid being addicted on the social network. So I think the target audience of the paragraph is all the parents who have children who are likely to get accessed to social network like Facebook.
ReplyDeleteIn the paragraph, obviously, the author feels negative to Facebook. She quotes Pr. Rosen’s suggestions to tell all the targeted parents how to avoid of being addicted. Parents should not let their children learn how to use Facebook too early and control their time browsing Facebook I think she is biased since most reasons she listed through the paragraph are talking about the negative aspects of Facebook. Though she mentions that social network provides an ideal platform for those introverted teens to engage in some issues, I think the benefits of Facebook is far more than that. In brief, Facebook not only enhances the exchange of information between buddies, it also provides many chances to people to know some new friends through the website. But there is no doubt that Facebook makes many teens addicted into it. So I don't totally agree with the author.
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DeleteI agree with Peiyu's opinion that the author is biased. She focuses too much on negative effects. The most cases she talks about are how teenagers get addicted to Facebook. Moreover, she provides us with ten solutions to deal with teenagers' addiction. However, I do not think it is wrong to do that. Although it is biased, it is written for the parents whose children have this sort of problem. She is not aiming to criticize or show her attitudes toward Facebook. She is trying to help. It is biased for those who are not in this situation and not biased for those already in. Since this article was published in a public website, everyone can get access to it. Some individuals may be influenced by her opinion and follow her advice. This is how private can be affected by public. Thus, it is important for the public to avoid being biased in order not to mislead individuals. However, people have their own judgment to choose believe or not.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading all of the responses, I would like to point out a small fact to those who have posted before myself. The play "Facebook Me" is about ten girls and their adventure through adolescence with social networking playing a large role. Thus, all of the responses are from teenage girls between 13 and 15.
DeleteI agree with Jisoo Jin in stating that the title is misleading for the information provided in the article. However, if you click on the hyperlinks, the books listed are not focused on just females like the article is.
I also would like to disagree with Jisoo Jin's comment about the article being skewed. Mostly, except for the comments from the cast(The cast is all female, as stated in the first paragraph of my response) the article is providing tips which could be used for either gender. For example, the passage that is titled "Start young" to the final passage "Look for warning signs" does not mention any specific gender that these tips would work for.
Also to be noted, is the passage at the end of the cast's comments. There is a paragraph that starts with "Some new research has shown..." This passage is merely stating that the tips below that paragraph were pulled from a DIFFERENT set of research entirely.
In response to Dennis' comment, I just want to point out that I didn't mean the article itself was skewed, but the gender and age group for the "interviewees" was.
DeleteBut I do agree with you on tips and the final passage not being skewed.
The targeted audience is the parents of pre-teens and teens. I would have to agree with everyone that sees the author as being biased. Her focus is mostly about the negative effects of social networking, but to go along with dennis she uses young female teens that are in a play about how social networking played a large part in their lives. Therefore their comments will be bias. The fact is not every kid is addicted to facebook. Also, the girls being so young makes it hard to see the truth, as you get older you become more comfortable with who you are and dont care as much about others opinion. Now, the bottom paragraph does have good points about what parents can do if they feel their kid is getting too involved with social networking.
ReplyDeleteThis article seems to be trying to portay the negative views on facebook through the eyes of girls ranging from 13-15. The age range seems very skewed because this is the age when girls are trying to fit in with everyione and become liked. They do this by posting and making themselves look good on Facebook. If interviews were done from other demographics such as males or older girls the views on Facebook wouldn't be nearly as drastic as it's made out to be.
ReplyDeleteWhen said that she lies to her mom frequently about doing her assignments instead of being on the internet it shows that the parents might be in the wrong as well. They shouldn't be naive enough to think that their 13-15 year old daughter doesn't spend a ton of time on the internet parousing through things and being very into how many people like her.
In this article, the author appears to be writing an informal and instructional article for parents to help them observe and correct developmentally destructive tendencies their kids may have with technology. This observation is supported by the conclusion containing a list of tips for parents. First of all I think the teen testimonials are incredibly biased supporting the idea that teens are obsessed with facebook. I haven't known anyone to take facebook that seriously, and if anyone was that obsessed, they would have been made fun of where I come from. As for facebook being detrimental in the family environment, my family would ridicule the offender about caring what other people think or getting caught up in drama. Put quite simply, the way I was raised, in both the family environment and peer environment, the less you cared about the things that teens in this article were concerned about, the cooler you were. Due to that environmental reinforcement, I believe that is why social network problems weren't prevalent with me or my peers. Although I don't observe facebook to infect people's lives as much as this article suggests, there are minor phenomena caused social networks. Phenomena such as people checking their facebook pages in class. I don't believe this is that prevalent of an issue, but regardless of severity, it is an example of public invading a private environment.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I do agree with you in the sense that Facebook did and does not have the amount of control over my life as this article suggests, I understand how Facebook could potentially be as controlling and competitive as the teens stated in this article. For example, competition becomes apparent when I notice posts of high school students insulting an anonymous peer. With many teenage girls, you will notice that their "Updated profile picture" is one that has been taken by themselves. This shows us that they take great interest in making sure that they look nothing less than perfect.
DeleteIn this article the social network was taking over. Instead on really speaking youth could turn to the computer.
ReplyDeleteThe author is clearly trying to use alarming facts and opinions to capture the attentions of parents (of middle school and high school students primarily). The quotes from the actors and actresses in the Facebook Me play are generic opinions which I've found to be shared among many Facebook users, which shows us who the target audience may be. These opinions manage to, without going into great detail or complexity, persuade its readers (including regular Facebook users like myself) into believing that social networks can be very dangerous to one's self esteem. Specifically, Samantha's quote stood out in my mind. Each generation appears to start doing things such as drink, smoke, or have sex, at a younger age, and Samantha's quote may provide an understanding of why this seems to be happening. To sum up the article in the regards of "Public vs. Private," one could argue it shows us that privacy is much harder to find nowadays, amidts the evolution and growth of social networking sites.
ReplyDeleteI think the primary audience is the parents,especially those have children who are addictive to social networking online than offline. Because of the first sentence of the article we can tell that. The writer say"do you know where your children are?" What one of the children say touch my heart. She said she lost control and she hopes that the parents would tell her to get off the computer. Suddenly I seem to see myself. Sometimes I am addictive to surfing the internet. Sometimes I lose myself. Sometimes I do not know where I should go or what I should do. Also hopefully sb will help me out
ReplyDelete