Month: November 2019

It’s a funny thing, Ive never really thought about the significance of language in my life, at least not for longer than a fleeting moment. In this podcast, a story is told of a man, aged 27, who doesn’t really have a language. He cant speak, or hear, and when using sign language he just repeats what was said to him back, rather than replying. Things like speaking and hearing and the ability to have conversation seem so unimportant, until you hear about someone who doesn’t have it. We use language in so many ways on an everyday basis. I’d like to say I have a good relationship with language, after all I have never had issues with it and have always understood every concept in English class, and even did well incorporating a completely different language. Im sure my father would say differently, he has dyslexia. In the future, I see language being quite important as I continue my education and go on the job search.

The first mode I chose to use was a photo depicting two girls. One of the girls was shown elated, with different likes and comments around her head, the second girl however was sad and had less likes and comments. I chose this photo because it depicts one of my essay’s main points, that social media is bad for the mental health of its users.

The second mode I chose to incorporate in my multimodal essay was another photo depicting multiple women of different body types. Around the women were negative thoughts they felt about their body as well as words in quotes that have been said to them. I chose to incorporate this photo because I felt that it accurately portrayed the paragraph that I mention body dysmorphia and negative body image in. It really put the words I use into a photo.

The third mode I chose to incorporate was a TED talk in which the speaker talked about how screens make us less happy. In this TED talk by Adam Alter, he discusses how even the biggest leaders in the tech industry limit the screen time their kids can have, even Steve Jobs did it. He also discusses the different ways companies limit the screen time of their employees to increase productivity and happiness, and lower stress levels. I chose to include this presentation because I feel that it is a different point of view into the affect of social media and technology on adults and the things done to help them, instead of focusing on teenagers.

For my choice of article, I chose an article that was about the effect of social media and the culture it produces on young girls and teens. This article is titles “Camera-Ready: Young Women’s Appearance-Related Social Media Consciousness” and was written by  Higgins, Widman, Nesi, and Choukas-Bradley. To explain further, this article discusses the impact of social media on mental health, as well as physical health. I chose this article because not only was it one of the topics I was debating on choosing, but it is also a topic I find very interesting. I feel that this is an important topic to discuss because so many people of all ages are impacted by the toxicity social media produces and it greatly impacts the younger generations. I feel that social media is more prominent in middle school aged girls now than it was when I was in middle school. The beauty related pressures are certainly increased, although the world is certainly kinder to those that aren’t the cookie-cutter size 2 girls. It has become a game to guess wether or not a girl is 14 or 23 on social media, which forces girls to not only put pressure on themselves to look older and sexier, but also forces them to grow up faster and face the challenge of predators thinking they are older than they are. It also encourages people to constantly compare themselves to others, and rate their own beauty on the amount of “likes” on their most recent selfie. The culture created by social media for physical appearance has essentially eliminated the tried and true “awkward phase”. One of the main arguments of this article was that the newest pressure on todays youth is to always look camera ready, just in case a photo was to be taken and posted on social media. This pressure forces young girls to constantly look their best, and to always act as they do on social media. I plan to connect this article to my essay by connecting YoYo Ma’s essay on the importance of including Art in education by explaining how if teens are given a creative outlet that can distract from the addiction of social media.

For my choice of chapter, I chose chapter 17 of They Say/I Say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein. This chapter because it is about writing in the social sciences and writing in research papers. I chose this chapter because I can use the techniques mentioned in the chapter to improve my essay since my essay topic involves the impact of media on mental and physical health of teens, which involves social sciences. One of my sources is a research paper by a group of psychologists, so this chapter will help me discuss it within my essay a bit more, as well as different ways to discuss it other than just listing off quotes and facts.

my comments are the ones in red

I edited Natalies essay for my peer review