"Maybe This Next Post Will Make Me Feel Better."

this was an essay I wrote last week for my English class and Im really proud of it! I'd love for someone who isn't my teacher to read it. Hope you enjoy and learn something to at least see a new perspective! Also, I'm more than willing and would actually like to talk about these topics with people so please if you agree OR disagree let me know! Thanks!

“Maybe this next post will make me feel better.”

Since the mass availability of smartphones, for better or for worse, they've had a massive effect on people's lives. All individuals young and old, including myself, have some form of smart device, whether it be a toddler with an iPad, a grandmother with a Kindle, or an athlete with an Apple Watch, everyone keeps some form of smart device on their person at all times. In Jean Twenge's 2017 essay titled "Has the Smartphone Destroyed a Generation?" she attempts to inform the reader about the more than likely long-lasting negative effects of smartphones, specifically on the youth.

Twenge's message throughout the essay is that no matter how many positives smartphones have, they are heavily outweighed by the negatives. The surplus of examples given in the text helps support this well. To get you started with some necessary information from this essay, Twenge is mainly talking about Gen Z who was born from 1995 to 2012, or as Twenge calls it the iGen. The iGen seems to be one of the most unhappy generations to date and one of the most contributing factors to this unhappiness is their smartphones. According to Twenge "Eighth-graders who spend 10 or more hours a week on social media are 56% more likely to say they’re unhappy than those who devote less time to social media" (63). This bit of information alone is enough to show that smartphones are contributing to the sorrow of this generation but there is more than just this bit of data to show this. Suicidal thoughts are increased by 35% in teens who spend three hours or more on electronics, for the first time in twenty-four years, 2011 had a higher teen suicide rate than teen homicide rate, eighth-graders run a 27% increase in the likelihood of developing depression (64), and the list goes on. Children today statistically run a higher chance of being overall more unhappy than prior generations. Drawing a parallel with my own experiences as a member of the iGen, I understand and agree with Twenge's claim of general sadness and depressive tendencies of our generation. Not just through myself but the experiences of my close friends and peers. There seems to be a united conscience that everyone is miserable, we all go through the motions taking one step forward when we can; almost immediately followed by two steps back.

These unhappy teens do not just feel this way for no reason. Being chronically online and creating online-based para-social relationships also seems to have stunned general growth in teens as a whole. The iGen has been proven to begin taking baby steps toward adulthood much later than earlier generations. Things like work, driving, sex, drinking, drugs, and partying, these things dont come naturally to the iGen. According to Twenge "Nearly all Boomer high-school students had their driver’s license by the spring of their senior year; more than one in four

teens today still lack one at the end of high school," (61). iGen tends to put off certain things, and one of these things is working. Having a job and driving are the two biggest steps toward adulthood because they give teens major independence and freedom. By being able to finance their own lives and futures and go where they please they begin to start breaking free from parental control. Putting off getting their license affects their ability to get and maintain a job; considerably affecting their financial stability and careers. 

Driving doesn't only affect their ability to work, it also has major effects on their social lives. iGen is far less likely to actually go out and do things with their friends: "12th-graders in 2015 were going out less often than eighth-graders did as recently as 2009," (61). They do not just refuse to hang out platonicly, but romanticly as well. Teens now are less likely to be sexually active, with teens now having sex by the time they are in eleventh grade (61). Ninth-graders have the largest decline in sexual activity falling by nearly 40% since 1991 (61). If there is one positive to this it is that teen pregnancy was at its lowest in 2016, being down 67% since its highest in 1991 (61). Again, calling back to my own life I can't relate to this nor do I have any close friends in this camp. I will say though from my perspective yes there is a prominent part of Gen Z that isn't sexually active but I do believe there is a kind of hyper-sexuality in Gen Z that you don’t really see in any other generation. With the vessel of the internet and specifically the readily available nature of internet pornography; I do believe that it has caused Gen Z to be much more sexually explicit for sure, and this is perfectly shown through E-relationships being especially sexually charged. I personally believe this is astronomically damaging to teenagers completely destroying their ability to have let alone maintain real relationships.

In addition to a lack of sexual impulse and adult responsibilities, iGen seems to gloss right over the idea of partying or experimenting with smoking, drinking, or drugs completely. "More comfortable in their bedrooms than in a car or at a party, today’s teens are physically safer than teens have ever been. They’re markedly less likely to get into a car accident and, have less of a taste for alcohol than their predecessors, are less susceptible to drinking’s attendant ills," (61). Twenge says, commenting on iGen's aversion to these things for better or for worse. Although maybe not the best or smartest decisions these are things that are historically staples of the rebellious teenager archetype. Again, gauging from my own experiences this seems to be a pretty split assumption about Gen Z. From what I have experienced teens today are fifty-fifty. They either do or don’t engage in these things. They either stay inside on personal devices or they go out and partake in drinking or drug use. I feel especially with the growing normality of marijuana usage teens today are generally doing that, they are also trading in their pack of Marlboro cowboy killers for blueberry flavored popcorn lung, and Pabst and gin and juice for Busch and vodka crans. Maybe it's to numb the overall hopelessness of the world for the iGen or the pendulum swinging too far, again another sign of our overindulgence, we seem to take the use of substances to an extreme other generations did not seem to do.

All of the examples given in the text highlight that the most damaging part of smartphones and social media is their addictive qualities. One aspect of every example given above is that they're all addictive traits stemming from social media use, especially the way iGen seems to handle drinking or drug use. "Nearly all slept with their phone, putting it under their pillow, on the mattress, or at the very least within arm’s reach of the bed" (64). Twenge said this concerning her San Diego State University class when they were asked about what they do with their phones while sleeping. I can attest to this as well, myself as well as everyone I know sleeps with it at its farthest being the nightstand. Twenge also mentions phones being the first and last things her students see in a day (64). She also talks about her students specifically using the language of addiction saying things like "'I know I shouldn’t, but I just can’t help

it,' one said about looking at her phone while in bed," (65). This does show how self-aware the iGen is about its place in the major issue which is modern tech. 

These issues didn't just happen overnight, it has been a steady decline over the last fifty years. The unfortunate sum of the last fifty years of innovation is arguably the most lost and disenfranchised generation to date, and those characteristics are only going to continue to get worse unless we as a society make a genuine change. To put into perspective while writing this essay I have at multiple points in time been distracted doom scrolling on my phone, been sucked into the repetitive nature of streaming, or just been distracted doing anything else. Gen Z has lost its ability to understand the severity of adult life and we try and distract and drown out the white noise of that as much as we can. We are afraid of the world as it is and only see it as we would like it to be. But every day I try and make changes to that, I try every day to break these chains and counteract the normality of looking down at a screen. Some days are better than others, but I know I'm not the only one trying, and that is an important lesson to take away from the hellscape that is the iGen. We can all stand to do a little better, to be a little better, but as long as we continue life as it is now, smartphones will continue to destroy generations.