Rough Draft: When You Know Better You do Better

My unedited version of my persuasive argument had a lot of work to be done! My peer editors highlighted my higher order concern as needing to be more direct when it came to my thoughts and claim (thesis). They also pointed out the need to give light on what social media is already doing to help censor certain adult themes and protect children's development. Lower order concerns stated by my peer editors were grammar, punctuation and spacing. I went through and developed a stronger thesis, corrected my LOC's and tied my essay up with a strong ending claim to to thesis. 

Persuasive Argument

            “As teens have started spending less time together, they have become less likely to kill one another, and more likely to kill themselves” (Klass, “When Social Media Is Really Problematic for Adolescents”). Have you ever looked at your phone and felt a negative emotion or struggled with your mental health because of what you saw? The psychology behind the increase in technology and has impacted the younger generations in many positive ways but mainly in negative ways. Although the increase in technology has allowed for creativity and innovation, some might say that being without it for a period of time or area of life is beneficial to the mental health of teenagers and young adults. 

            In “Screens and Sleep”, Michael Robb demonstrates the negative effects of technology and the effect it has on teens’ sleep, whether they know it or not. To set the scene, thirty-nine percent of teens sleep with phone in reach of them (Robb 7). This is why fifty-four percent of teens are interrupted during sleeping by their notifications on their device and fifty-one percent of these notifications are social media notifications (Robb 7). Also, thirty-two percent of teens check their phone within five minutes of sleeping. I know I fall asleep to Netflix all the time. According to a study performed by Harvard researchers that is summarized by Dr. Susan Haas on Psychology Today, looking at your phone before bed has various negative effects on your sleep cycle and general health. The blue light on your phone “suppresses your melatonin secretion”, the hormones that put you to sleep (Haas). The suppression of melatonin directly affects your circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm tells your body when to “sleep, wake and eat” (Psychology Today). It also will decrease your “REM sleep” (Haas). REM sleep is “a stage of sleep that is critical” because it “solidifies memories and is tied to your creative and problem-solving skills” (Haas). This interrupted sleep, from experience, causes exhaustion over time and is a contributing factor to decrease in mental health. If all of these facts are true, the logical decision to make about screen time before sleep or even during sleep should be eliminated or limited. This will allow your melatonin to produce appropriately so you can sleep properly.But sleep is not the only major part of our lives, relationships are also.

In “Connected, but alone?” Sherry Turkle discusses the contradictory nature of technology and human connection. The fact that we can “end up hiding from each other, even as we’re constantly connected to each other” is what she investigates the most (Turkle). As humans our lives and relationships are messy and filled with emotion but technology allows us to give ourselves away in a controlled manner or as Turkle says “The Goldilock effect... not too little, not too much, just enough.” We get to choose what people perceive and see. But the problem with this is that this blocks any possibility for “real attachments” and forming these give us the space to mess up, learn and develop as human beings (Turkle). Real relationships are not convenient to both parties all the time. Turkle also hits on how technology gives us the opportunity when we want to plug in to real life or plug in our charger and get on our phone. This automatic mindset of doing what’s convenient to you all the time is where we begin to fall in love with Facebook more than the people around us. As humans we love the “automatic listeners” that these platforms give us (Turkle). This constant access of “listeners” (or so we think) robs us of our ability for “solitude” (Turkle). Solitude is where you are able to “be separate... [And] gather yourself” (Turkle). When we are robbed of our ability to mentally cope with solitude we begin treating our real life relationships as a way to “feel alive” and “support our fragile sense of self” that we lost when we gave up our solitude (Turkle). Turkle then offers simple solutions to reclaiming times of solitude and face to face conversations by creating “sacred” (technology-free) spaces in the household and being an example to your children by showing them what it looks like (Turkle). In conclusion, human’s desire for connection is natural but according to Turkle, we need to make parts of our life a sacred space for that natural connection and human emotions in order to adress the deeper reason we long for likes over rich relationships.

Now, what if you think there’s not a problem with technology at all? Well, in “Teenagers Aren’t Losing Their Minds”, Richard A. Friedman tries to debunk the “myth” of the mental health epidemic in teens. “Don’t Panic... ” Friedman states, “... things are really not this dire” (“Teenagers Aren’t Losing Their Minds”). He then goes on to relate how when the television was invented, there was a similar panic among parents but what he forgets to mention is that televisions were not built to build relationships, purchase things, or track our daily lives. Television was built to entertain and enjoy not to consume our lives and relationships (Friedman, “Teenagers Aren’t Losing Their Minds”). Although I agree with when Friedman acknowledges the how our teenagers are in an anxious, competitive world, I do not agree with dismissing how technology is a primary cause of the world’s emotions (“Teenagers Aren’t Losing Their Minds”). I do believe our teenager’s mental state is critical by just looking around. Over four times of Americans now take antidepressants (Twenge, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation”). Every kid with a smartphone has access to sex, drugs and harming behaviors that seem to be encouraging it. Dr. Ana Radovic did a study that supports this culture of over exposure with her teenage patients who had severe depression. She was introduced to the connection that it provides for her teens but there was a point of over-sharing that the teens were exposed to. For example, one of her teens followed her favorite band and they soon began posting their fresh self-harm cuts, as a way to relate to their fans of course (“When Social Media Is Really Problematic for Adolescents”). But this inappropriate overshare of information can expose teens to or reinforce coping mechanisms that are unhealthy (Klass). “13 Reasons Why” is another prime example of how it has vulgar images affect impressionable teens. Studies Show from JAMA Psychiatry that 13 Reasons Why causes “association, not causation, but raises the question of “media contagion” — that is, the possibility that the show and the intense discussion of it on social media may have led to some imitative behavior, and cites “the need for safer and more thoughtful portrayal of suicide in the media.”(Klass). There is an epidemic and to deny that is to be ignorant. But, I have closely thought on how to better prevent premature minds from addiction and overuse to technology and why we should take action.

I believe that there is a space and time for technology and there’s a space and time without it. Just as Turkle explained how some spaces are sacred. Spaces in our life I believe are most sacred are our sleep, our relationships and our sleep. There are simple steps that could be taken that I believe would make a huge difference. Firstly, as our future leaders of the world are in their primary education that they should enforce a no phone rule during lunch time to encourage relationship building. Another aspect that will further encourage healthier minds is to restrict social media as eighteen plus. This can be better enforced by requiring a picture of the eighteen year old’s or over identification and current selfie and then it can be verified by a social media employee. This would decrease profit for these platforms but I believe that profit is a bit less important than mental health. To better encourage less social media use is to utilize celebrities and figures who are popular among adults with children to testify against underage social media use. I did not just pull the first two changes I would make out of thin air. Ever since I was little, my mom has done a great job at exposing me to things that are appropriate with my developmental journey. She didn’t get me a phone until middle school and it was out necessity. But as I look back, I wasn’t ready for a phone until seventeen or eighteen because I was overexposed to things that harmed my mental health and relationships. The last solution I would encourage for each individual is to either sleep with their phone on silent and over an arm’s reach from the bed. I also believe we should fall asleep with either a book, meditation or something else technology-free. This solution is not the end all be all but it is a start to help lessen the use of social media with minors.      

We are more protected and safe than ever but our minds, relationships and sleep are not safe from the very thing protecting us: technology. As our minds are focused on the little screen in front of us, our perception and priorities change. They begin to revolve around the little box of pixels than the people around us. We begin to desire that aesthetic feeling and look twenty-four-seven but the only place we can get it is from the phone. In order to comeback from this mental health epidemic, we must abandon our obsessiveness for perfection and allow one or more areas of our life to be without technology. Because, after all, perfection these days is cheap and at the tips of our fingers but raw, beautiful relationships are costly and vital for our health.