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Analysis Of Jean TwengeHas The Smartphone Destroyed A Generation

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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. Twenge begins her article with a conversation she had with a thirteen year old girl named Athena. She uses expert opinion to show she is credible by going straight to the expert source, a teenager. Like most teens, Athena has her own smartphone. In the conversations with Twenge, Athena talks about what she does in her free time, and what she and her friends like to do. In the article, Twenge says, “She told me she’d spent most of the summer hanging out alone in her room with her phone” (Twenge 59). Twenge includes this right in the beginning of the article so the reader can see a real teenager admit the negative effects the smartphone is bringing to herself, which in this case, is isolation. This credible source allows the reader to trust Twenge throughout the rest of the article when she talks about how the smartphone is harming teenagers. Following the expert opinion, Twenge includes hyperboles to engage the reader's emotions and to emphasize how often teenagers are on their phones. She includes when Athena says, “We didn’t have a choice to know any life without iPads or Iphones. I think we like our phones

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