Disadvantage Of Instant Gratification

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.

Since the onset of consumerism, the major growth of consumption has caused society to improve their daily life. With new innovations such as washing machines, dishwashers, automobiles, and cell phones society is able to eliminate hard work and progress forward. The inventions and innovations created have enhanced the quality of many lives. The everyday labor around the house is reduced, we can talk to anyone from around the world at any time, and look up any kind of information without having to read a book. However many of these time saving and efficient innovations are purchased by people who have no need for these devices and purchased them un- necessarily as luxury items. There have been many essays written about the positive and negative

The works “Somnambulist”, “How not to get into College: The Preoccupation with Preparation”, and “Enjoying the so-called "Iced cream": Mr. Burns, Satan, and Happiness” imply that in today’s society, individuals are valuing extrinsic happiness to a greater scale compared to their value of intrinsic happiness. Authors Heron Jones, Alfie Kohn, and Daniel Barwick suggest that individuals need to place a greater value on intrinsic achievements rather than extrinsic achievements within their lives as extrinsic fulfilment leads to momentary happiness, compared to the positive long-term effects of intrinsic fulfillment. The problem begins with individuals focusing and making decisions based on extrinsic rewards such as: grades or a paycheck. Secondly,

Teens today branded as iGen, the generation born in between 1995 through 2012, has grown with smartphones at their complete disposal. According to, Jean Twenge, writer of “Have Smartphones Destroyed A Generation,” the rise and sway smartphones and social media have over teens has negative contributions over the emotions and behaviors of iGen, and they are “on the brink of a mental crisis.” “There is compelling evidence that the devices we have placed in young people’s hands are having profound effects on their lives—and making them seriously unhappy.”

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.

The purpose of this news article was to bring light to a topic that adults and non-millennials probably would not comprehend and or understand otherwise about the current generation and what they gravitate towards. Examples of this could be an elderly parent or grandparent wondering why their child/grandchild loves social media so much or a young person being curious of which app they use the most. The article is mostly focused around college and high school students. The research study further goes on to explain why this trend is happening through questions, graphs, and exact numbers. It goes on

Today's generation is more connected to technology and are living faster paced lives than any other generation preceding them. In the generation of the millennials the presents of technology is everywhere from the time they wake up till the time they go to sleep; they are influenced by technology in all aspects of their life. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “Children 11 to 14 spend more than 50 hours a week in front of a screen” (qtd. in Egan and Egan). This connection to technology consumes a lot of their time and leaves little to no time to concentrate on the physical world around them. Technology hinders a millennials ability to have a sense of connection and responsibility for their natural world.

In September 2017, Jean M. Twenge articulates the development of generation “iGen” in the article “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”. In the article Twenge talks about post-Millennials and how they are generally safer and cleaner then past generations have been. The facts Twenge provides are enlightening to the problem areas that need improvement in this generation. Generation “iGen” has become more dependable of technology and has been spending time with technology more than ever before. This generation has become powered by their smartphones; it has changed the way several people live today and has brought many individuals to a point of mental illness.

A large portion of the world’s older generation possesses the mindset that smartphones are decreasing our intelligence. This view has been held for years and is understandable, but Daniel T. Willingham presents a different idea in his article “Smartphones Don’t Make Us Dump”. Daniel T. Willingham is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and is the author of Raising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do. He gears his article towards the parents of the future generations; correcting their misconceptions and inserting a proper one using logos.

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.

Throughout Kathryn Tyler’s article, “The Tethered Generation,” she discusses the effects of technology and helicopter parents on the millennial generation. Tyler believes that technology has became an easy way for parents to continue to watch over their children as they age (Tyler 478). Tyler also says technology is helping oppressive parents continue to smother their children and that people in the millennial generation are not becoming adults in every aspect of life in the time frame they should be (478). An enormous factor of growing up is being able to make mistakes and figure out problems and solutions alone. This is being taken away by cellphones because young adults constantly have a lifeline to call or text, such as their parents who help solve their problems. As Kathryn Tyler explains in relatable ways throughout her article, technology and helicopter parents are a concerning issue for our future because they prevent young adults from gaining the necessary skills needed to become prominent and responsible adults.

“Do you ever put that phone of yours down?” I hear my mom shriek day after day. It’s true, 14-17 year-old teens usually send and receive up to 60 text messages a day. Phones and other electronics have recently become popular during the past few years, much like Apple, who are constantly releasing their newest iPhone to the world. Ray Bradbury, author of many short stories involving technology foresaw these events.

In this behavioral science article, “African farmers' kids conquer the marshmallow test.” author Bruce Bower delivers facts about an experiment that is called the marshmallow test, an experiment about self-control where you place a treat in front of a child and tell them not to eat in for a reward of a better treat. A concept is known as delayed gratification. The experiment took place in Cameroon located in central Africa. They had 76 children all coming from a family of farmers. The results were that 70 percent of the kid waited the whole ten minutes for their better treat. These results were compared to the same test but when German kids where only 28 percent waited. Bower develops this study by explaining how it's the way they were raised

lex Lickerman, author of the article “The Power of Delaying Gratification”, discuss the experiment psychologist Walter Mischel did on the kids to understand their self-control. Basically, he gives a group of children a cookie and gives them to option either they could eat the cookie immediately or they can wait until he comes back, however, if they wait for him to back they will receive another cookie. Based on his experiment he concludes that the kid who resist to eat a cookie and wait for him to gain another cookie they will do better in the school than the kids who did not resist. For instances, they will get higher sat scores than who eat the cookie immediately. Likewise, I attempt to do the same experiment instead of using cookie I use candy because teenager loves candy, therefore it will be difficult for them to refuse candy. So, I did experiment on students who are in regular classes and they are in different grades. Based on the results, I realize that only freshman and sophomore find it difficult to candy but seniors are also found difficult to resist the candy. This interacts with Walter ideology because I did experiment students who are in regular class and Walton states that kids who resist eating candy straightway will do better in the school. Therefore, the students find difficult to resist the candy so they are in regular class instead of honors class.

Technology occurred before the human kind and it has improved people’s lives positively and negatively. The influence of technology is really great that it has absolutely changed our lifestyle. Computers, the Internet, Gadgets all these things have transformed our working system completely and our productivity has increased unbelievably. As everyone knows with every positive that have to be a negative, technology is really great, but it also has a huge affected every part of family life. We are spending more time indoors than we are outside. The time we spent on the computer, watching TV, and other electronics drive is about 8 hours a day. During this time, we are usually spent alone and not with the rest of the family. With all the electronics drive, we currently have, we don 't need to get out of the house anymore, you can do everything from the luxury of your home. Almost everything revolves around technology now. Don’t get me wrong, I love computer and all the technology we have now, with every new invention coming out I have them all, Apple Watch, iPhone7 Plus, iPad, new Apple TV, and new headphone, most of my product is around Apple because I love the company they produce a good product, good design, and it last for a long time. On June 29, 2007, about 9 years ago, when the first generation of the iPhone came out, people will wait outside the stores to buy it. The estimated sales of this first generation iPhone were around 250,000 and 700,000 units in the first weekend