Writing to Respond – Are teenagers screen enslaved social inadequates?

Dear Ms Samantha Taylor,

I take your point on board but Franzen, Louis CK and Greenfield are correct. I strongly agree with your statements concerning the way teenagers live their lives. You assert that the current crop of teenagers are a different generation as they are disinterested and have detached themselves from real society. You and the media present teenagers in a negative way as superficial, fickle and apathetic because, you say, of the lack of awareness they show to reality or the real world. In your view, teenagers concentrate too much on social network sites and they seem to be apathetic about their education and future. I really agree for the following reasons.

Recent evidence from Franzen has shown that about “92% of teenagers go on-line daily and 56% go on-line several times a day”. The data from different sources vary, but the most important thing is that this shows how important a smartphone or computer is to a teenager’s daily life. It is their everything.

I believe on-line socialising is creating a uniquely shallow and trivial culture, making teenagers unable to socialise in a meaningful way. Too much on-line fraternising amongst teenagers has created a generation who in fact can’t relate face to face. This in turn has a negative and detrimental impact on the majority of teenagers. Texting and the use of mobile phones has established itself as the preferred and favoured channel of basic communication between the majority of the teenagers. As a result of this, they are not ready for the real world where people skills make the difference between success and failure in the current jobs market.

Moreover, teenagers do not place as much importance on academic challenge, and focus too much of their time on social networking sites which can make it more difficult for them to distinguish between the meaningful relationships we foster in the real world and the numerous casual relationships formed through social media. Teenagers’ attitude to education shows how little value and importance they put on it; education seems to be low on the list of their priorities. While teenagers spend all those countless hours glued to Facebook, social networking has indeed “turned them into screen-enslaved social inadequates”. You are right. Hours spent on social networking sites are turning teenagers away from reality. Electronic gadgets are leading teenagers to become socially withdrawn and unable to relate to others.

While we are busy tweeting, texting and spending, the world is drifting towards disaster. Teenagers don’t really take into consideration or realise that their generation is a major crisis about to reach its peak. Now that we have all these new expensive gadgets and high-tech items, teenagers are being brainwashed to the extent that they are detaching themselves from reality. The story of David Molak is a classic example of a teenager who was cyber bullied to his own death. It is heartbreaking that in the real world social media is having a disastrous effect on the mental health of the nation. Obsession with gadgets is pushing teenagers over the edge, into an epidemic of psychological disorders. They seem to depend on social networking sites for self-satisfaction and higher status amongst their friends.

Teenagers seem to focus on social media rather than on the type of person they want to become. These days, teens above all seek status and acceptance amongst their peers and these are not always healthy aspirations. Also, teenagers are apathetic because of the amount of hours they spend on social media rather than studying and planning for their future. I strongly feel that teenagers are a brand-new generation of digital addicts, spending hours upon hours texting, unwittingly changing the world for the worse as more and more of them devote themselves to the world of superficial triviality.

To conclude, teenagers’ addiction to social networking sites emphasises that we could be raising a generation who live only in the thrill of the computer generated moment. Teens are in danger of detaching themselves from the real world because they seem to shy away from academic challenge and lose themselves to social media. Such sites are changing children’s brains, creating a dystopian generation of selfish, self-obsessed robot-narcissi.