Dear Ms Samantha Taylor,
I am here to defend the name of teenagers. Here are a few thoughts of my own that I would like to share with you, to give you a better understanding of us teens; your recent article surprised me as I feel you misrepresent teenagers today. Your use of the opinions of Franzen, Louis Ck and Greenfield surprised me quite a bit as I strongly disagree with their opinions about teens and our use of technology. I disagree with these statements as they do not give a true reflection on how teenagers use this, as they only look at the negative effects of the use and not the positives, which there are many of!
First things first, I would like to set the record straight on the use of social media by teens living in the UK. I appreciate, understand and listen to what adults have to say about teenagers, although it always seems to be the same thing that these adults are talking about, which is ‘mischief’ or ‘chaos’ as you would stereotype it.
I believe that the reasoning for adults blaming teenagers for chaos is mainly because teens are an easy group to stereotype. Adults do not very often see children aged 13-19 because of education and when they do finally get to see us we may set a bad first impression of what your ‘typical teen’ is like. Extending on the unsavory first impressions that certain teens give to the general adult public, like witnessing teens causing so called “mischief” on the street on their way home from school. This is always tough; kids our age (13-19) want to express themselves when they finally get out of school and enjoy the rest of their day. This is often misinterpreted and perceived differently by the public and they just see teens looking to cause trouble which simply isn’t the case at all.
I myself have had an experience of a misunderstanding with the older generation, where I was in a supermarket, and an elderly woman had dropped some items from her shopping basket. As I saw this happen, I believed it was only right to follow my morals and help her pick the things up. As I approached her she looked up in disgust, her face screwed up as much as possible, as if I had instantly insulted her. The thought going through her head was that I was there to take her stuff. I tried to explain to her how I was just trying to help, although she was having none of it, and told me to walk on. I walked away feeling disheartened to say the least, but also terrific anger, that trying to do a good deed could backfire on me in such a way. I felt as if I had been isolated, into a place where nobody could trust teenagers or even socialise with them.
This may be the fault of social media. Teens are known for their ‘constant’ use of it and adults may decide to write an article like you have yourself to express how you feel about this. Louis Ck suggested that their children shouldn’t have phones as they are losing their sense of empathy. I do not believe this is true as there is a lot of emotion within teenagers and their use of social media helps them to express those feelings. These issues are not confined specifically to social media, but also in real life face to face confrontations. Also when adults are discussing a certain topic on social media (Twitter, Facebook etc) they may notice teenagers in the UK having certain conversations which reflect on most teenagers badly. Adults are surprisingly quick to jump to conclusions about this topic. I believe social media complements teenagers as a tool to help them socialise in our society and break down barriers. Greenfield suggested that the use of social media from teens was making society fall apart, although it is clear that technology has developed massively in this generation for a positive benefit.
Therefore, with the points I have given, I have to say that I would disagree with what you have said concerning teenagers. That being said I can understand where you are coming from but I see this as a misconception. Surprisingly enough, teens are not always looking for trouble and are not always on their phones using social media to connect to the world and communicate with their friends (which I don’t believe is wrong). I feel that this article shows you are out of touch with today’s teenagers. Cigarettes – a 2010 survey showed 27 per cent of teens had smoked once in their lives, and five per cent smoked regularly. This compares to 53 per cent who tried smoking and 11 per cent smoked regularly in 1982. Binge-drinking among teens has also dropped by a third in the past 10 years. As for social media, Facebook’s has nearly 850 million active users. This fact proves that it is not only teens that have their eyes glued to their screens.
Teens are often called shallow, uncooperative, argumentative and even disorganised. This is simply not always the case. Obviously there are going to be times where these terms will be associated with teens, but I would like to express something that I have found myself (happening to be using social media). It reads “ D aring O utstanding N imble T alented S ensitive T actful E nergetic R adiant E xciting O pen T eachable Y outhful P olitical E nduring”. These kind words bring out the best in teenagers and show what they can really do when they put their minds to something (using social media). As we can see one of the words is “Political”. Many people may frown upon this, but I and many others have seen teenagers challenging members of parliament about certain decisions and opinions they disagree with, and the teens’ voices were definitely heard!
That is all I have to say. I hope that by reading this you may now have a different perspective on teenagers!
Yours Sincerely
Josh Ali
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