Blog Post #8: Reaction to “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”

In “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” Jean Twenge makes her claim very clear: “the experiences [teens today] have every day are radically different from those of the generation that came of age a few years before them,” (3) and those changes in experiences are due to the advancing technology. This quote and idea remind me of a conversation I had with some of my friends a few months ago. We were talking about how our generation, specifically people of ages sixteen to twenty-four were raised in elementary and middle school to live life the way it was in the late 90’s and early 2000’s before the big technology boom around 2007. Now, those generations are expected to adapt to live life with all of this technology and don’t know how to balance it. Our minds are meant to live without technology, but now that technology is integrated into everything, we aren’t able to comprehend everything as thoroughly as we should be able to. After a few more years, the upcoming generations will be raised to be more adapt to living with technology and will most likely succeed over our generation in the long run. I believe her point that technology is destroying our generation is true, but only because we aren’t adapted to it.