A Review of 'The Children of Cyberspace: Old Fogies by Their 20s'

As generations go by, our predecessors assume we are skipping out on important aspects of life just to get a few extra minutes on our devices. In Catherine Rampell’s “A Generation of Slackers? Not So Much”, it is said the older generations believe Generation Y is “coddled, disrespectful, narcissistic, and impatient” (Rampell 388). In all reality our generation is just doing what it has to in order to thrive in the world we live in, where technology is one of the largest parts of our everyday lives. If the older generations that criticize Generation Y had grown up in Generation Y they would realize the world we live in requires the use of technology. The advancement of society with technology has shaped Generation Y to be the people that they are, relying on technology; however, older generations believe Generation Y is lazy.

Many times our fears of what is unknown to us are often the strongest fears we hold as human beings. However, what if it was the fear of things we already know that were the most powerful and influential in our lives? In modern society, many hold within themselves a deep-seated fear of the technology that the world has become so revolved around. Additionally, it has recently become debatable whether or not this technology has become a hindrance to members of the so-called iGeneration, born between 1995 and 2012, who have grown up in a world surrounded by technology. Truly, the members of older generations, including millennials who have had themselves split off from the apparent technology obsessed generation of the youngest millennials, have expressed their concern as to whether or not these vast differences in generations have to do with the unhealthy use of technology. Among those to have analyzed this phenomenon is writer Jean M. Twenge who in her article, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?,” utilizes the study of a modern 13 year old girl named Athena to exemplify a plethora of determinants that technology has imposed on young people and the slow deterioration of everything from independence and social skills to a decline mental health due to technology use. Many of Twenge’s statements reveal the belief that many members of iGen are unequipped to handle adulthood and are even less happy because of the technology that has played a significant role in their lives

In the article, “Has the Smartphone Destroyed a Generation,” Jean M. Twenge uses rhetorical devices and appeals to build her credibility on how smartphones are destroying this generation's teenagers. The author presents several pieces of evidence to prove she’s correct, and shows how teenagers of this generation think and behave differently than their predecessors.

In Esther Dyson’s “Cyberspace: If You Don’t Love It, Leave It”, the existence of the internet is seen as potentially dangerous to today’s society. Dyson insists that the internet was once a sanctuary for tech savvy individuals such as gamers and professionals like engineers. The author focuses on the negative websites and communities that are often found offensive to the majority. She thinks the World Wide Web harbors a lot of power. This power can be accessed and conquered easily by most of the population. According to Dyson, responsibility is the key to changing the future (295). Her argument is convincing but slightly unrealistic. The internet seems to be growing into a whole other alternate universe. Society’s rapidly growing technology industry will only be harder to regulate. Most people will do what they want, when they want especially when it comes to the internet.

He says that while Gen Z can take in a lot of information very quickly due to this technological upbringing they also lose interest extremely quickly. Also, they tend to be more private with this technology than millennials were, rather than posting everything online they are more likely to use more anonymous apps.

Technology has advanced a lot more in the past century than it has over a million years. There is millions of new advancements found every day, however, this is making the younger generation a lot less knowledgeable. In the book The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerkein, it states that the teens today are the dumbest generation to live on the planet. It is commonly believed that the young generation is the least knowledgeable generation because of their great reliability on technology, constant distraction by technology, and negative media influences. Although technology helps to make one’s everyday life a lot easier, it is taking away one’s intelligence.

Although following the brief acknowledgement of outside influences, Twenge quickly recapitulates that teens are spending more time at home (and therefore less time working or hanging out with friends) because their social lives are on the internet. Technology has undoubtedly had an impact on the generation of kids who grew up with it, but it does not necessarily mean they are taking longer to mature than previous generations. Later on in the article, Twenge explains how iPhones are affecting the lives of the new generation in another way.

In “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” written by, the Psychology Doctor, Jean M. Twenge, she presents the results produced after twenty-five years of research (Twenge para3). Her research was carried out to understand the new generation and explain how it differs to the previous generations (Twenge para9). Although her style is indeed formal, she utilized a heavy amount of credentials, logos, emotional appeal and a factual tone, to enforces her appeal on the parents of the kids of this new generation. Furthermore, she underlays her stand on the topic throughout her analysis, rather than having a direct approach and states actual percentages to compare previous generations to the new one, which leads to a sense of validity. It is not until the very end, that she finally states her stand in a more direct sense, since she has now gained the trust of her audience.

While reading Jean M. Twenge’s “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? ,” I couldn’t help feeling attacked by an out-of-touch old lady who simply doesn’t understand those of us who were born into a time of unprecedented accessibility to technology, which Twenge comically names “iGen.” Many factors contributed to this feeling, including Twenge’s brief description of Snapchat and her nostalgic appeal to “those of us who fondly recall a more analog adolescence” (which I saw as an acknowledgement by Twenge that her audience would be just as old and out-of-touch as she was), but my feelings are probably more of a reflection of the individualism that emerged with the Millennial generation and the new fear of being “put in a box,” or more precisely in the context of this article and its accompanying studies, a trend or group that supposedly classifies the majority of today’s teens.

During Kathryn Tyler’s first section she talks about how millennials are connected and how the connectivity of technology has changed our generation. One of her first points in this section was about how students today are able to talk with their parents while away from college, “Now, students may be going across the country, but they call their parents on the cell phone three to five times per day” (Tyler 478). She really emphasizes the difference between the generation from today and the previous generation, “Years ago, most college dorm rooms had one land line, and, if parents were lucky, kids called home once a week” (478). Right away she stats facts of the generations are changing which gives the reader a very good a clear understand of how

The author claims that generation Z (people born from 1995-2010) is shaped by technology, and in turn, we have become a lazy generation. The author argues that, “Without an illustration, chart, or embedded YouTube video to ease them in, millions were frozen in place, terrified by the sight of one long, unbroken string of English words” (881). ‘Them’ refers to Americans. The author is claiming that America is becoming a nation full of electronic devices and new technology. As a result, we Americans expect videos on YouTube or simple illustrations to help us understand a concept we can read in text. People do not like reading mounds and mounds of text. The author claims, “As the public grows more desperate, scholars are working

The current generation of children is completely different than the preceding ones. They are living in the digital age. “Technology has blended in with daily activity to become a way of life and children today take for granted all of which is automated. It is hard for kids nowadays to imagine a world that existed without all of the gadgets, electronics and seamless operations that computer technology provides.” (3) “Children in the United States devote some 40 hours a week to television, video games and the Internet.” (12) Many psychologists and researchers are concerned about the impact that technology has on children. Children, tomorrow’s future parents and leaders, are being consumed by the negative effects that technology had on their

When it comes to comparing between our generation today and old generation in literacy there is a lot that we can talk about the first thing that we all think about is the technology our generation have that became a big part of our life today we use technology in schools, work, and public places the old generation did not have all the technology that we have today especially when it comes to school. I personally think that our generation does write a lot more than the old generation whether it is for school or social media our generation today not only write for school we write in social media too for example a blog where people write about a lot of different subject on the other hand the old generation only wrote in school. I know there is a lot of different opinions about the technology that we have today, for me technology helped me a lot as someone who did not speak English four years ago technology was the source that I learned most of my English from. At the same time I know there is a lot of bad things that come from technology, but that does not mean just ignore all the benefit that we get from it and focus on only the bad things.

The middle-aged group of society are the ones who greatly reminisce on a time with fewer forms of technology. (ButtePatil, screen 2) They grew up in a time where there was technology such as house phones, televisions, and microwaves; all of which their children take for granted. This generation is used to hearing that they should not spend so much of their time on social media. Childhood is a short time in life that we will be missed in older age; therefore, a cell phone with a precious twitter account should not take away time from

Technology has been involved in people’s lives forever, especially in the Millennial Generation. This generation consists of individuals born between the years of 1982-2004. The articles “The Flight From Conversation,” “Teens and Technology 2013,” and “Leading The Charge For Change” deals with teens interacting with technology today.Each article has different topics, but they connect through the over dependence of teens to technology. The Millennial Generation becomes less and less in touch with the real world and morphs into a quasi-reality.