The Effects of Social Media on Teenagers
The introduction of social networking to society has changed the way we communicate and ultimately live our lives. Social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter distract young people and usually result in a decline in their education. In the article, “Generation Why?” Zadie Smith talks about the various aspects of social networks that have negative impact on today’s world. For example, in her article, Zadie focuses on the young adults in the audience to recognize the negative effects of excessive and unnecessary use of social networking. Smith’s uses of rhetorical strategies in the essay strongly permit the young audience to relate to her examples.
When Zadie Smith talks about the language that many people are using on social networking websites like Facebook, she asserts that readers feel that the use of slang words on those websites is causing a big problem in students’ education, since the social networking sites consist of mostly teenagers. Zaide Smith provides an example of teenager’ language on the social networking sties, “Sorry babes! Missin’ you!!! Hopin’ u iz with the Angles. I remember the jokes we used to have LOL! PEACE XXXXX.” This demonstrates that nowadays young people are being lazy and use slang words and abbreviations. To illustrate, instead of writing the word “you” they just write the letter “u”. However, after a while students get so used to this kind of writing style that they keep making mistakes in professional writing. Moreover, they spend more time on those sites than they spend on their studies or anything more productive or creative. As a result they get lower grades than they expect, and do not have many other useful skills. Using real examples from real people, Smith makes the readers realize that they also may be writing in slang and/or abbreviations. The readers come to their senses and are awakened by this “wake up call” against social media.
When Zadie Smith talks about how people feel more comfortable when they are in front of their laptops while having a conversation with others, she implies that people begin to have trouble holding up a decent conversation in person as a long term effect of social media. Furthermore, Zadie Smith documents the conversion between Erica and Mark, “But something is not right with this young man: his eye contact is patchy; he doesn’t seem to understand common turns of phrase or ambiguities of language………….Mark: Because you go to B.U.” This shows that mark is not a social person. He’s having trouble to hold a face to face conversion and pay attention to what Erica is trying to tell him. In addition, He’s been negatively impacted by
