AO2: How does Mail Online express views on social websites? Explain your answer with brief quotations. By Areesha Fatima 10-F

The title of this text is ‘SOCIAL WEBSITES HARM CHILDREN’S BRAINS’ taken from ‘Mail Online’. It is an article which has been published on a website which is its structure. The purpose of this text is conative and informative as it seeks to inform and affect the reader. The language is quite straight-forward and appealing. The audience is young-adults, adults and people who are interested in knowing about the harmful effects of social websites. The tone of this passage is semi-formal and slightly negative as it can be seen by the diction. The theme is this passage is social websites.

Moreover, this passage contains expert opinions such as “neuroscientist Susan Greenfield”, “study by the Broadcaster Audience Research Board”. This shows that the author has ample knowledge about social websites and it makes the passage more reliable for the reader to relate.

The author has used Jargon which can be seen “Facebook”, “Twitter”, “Bebo”. The use of naming social networking sites helps Mail Online to express views and add more emphasis on social websites.

Furthermore, the author has achieved their target by using triples in the text. For example, “shorten attention spans, encourage…and, make young….”. Also “killing, skinning and butchering.” This helps the author to stress upon the fact so that the reader understands the effects of social websites.

Another stylistic device that the author uses is contention which is the main line of argument. For example, “social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users.” This shows the author’s point of view and it helps to pinpoint the issue being discussed.

The author has also used slight humor to engage the reader. For example, “we know how small babies need constant reassurance that they exist”. This device provokes laughter and makes a connection between the reader and the author.

The author has also used alliteration in this text ‘flight or fight’ which creates a rhythm for the reader and adds emphasis.

The author has also used inclusive language such as “of course, we do not know”, “we are seeing”. This gains sympathy and/or persuades the reader to agree with an idea. The author successfully grabs the reader’s attention.

Moreover, the author has used a variety of sentence structures which are simple, compound and complex. For example, “but they will strike”, “whether it can”, “and extremely profitable”. The use of these sentences creates short and long sentences to develop and reinforce viewpoints. This further builds a flow for the reader and through careful choice of words different effects are gained.

In conclusion, the ‘Mail Online’ has fulfilled their target of expressing its views about social websites. The author has used figurative language and rhetorical devices to have more impact on the reader. This makes the reader enjoy the article as its interesting. It gives a great deal of information about social media which shows that the author has a good amount of knowledge about the topic ‘social websites’.

 

 

 

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AO3: How have the writers of both texts conveyed their message about the negative use of social networking sites? Support your answer using brief quotations from the texts. By Amal Adil

The title of passage A is “It’s so over: cool cyberkids abandon social networking sites” and the title of passage B is “Social websites harm children’s brains”. Passage A has been taken from “The Guardian” and passage B from “Mail Online”. Both passages are trying to prove the harmful effects of social networking sites and how and why the excessive use of social media should be stopped. Both the writers have delivered the passages in an extremely effective way and have used detailed words to prove the negative effects of social media.

The tone used in passage A is slightly informal as the writer has used phrases like “ra-ra skirts” and “uncles wearing skinny jeans” to add a bit of humor to the text. By  making the tone informal from the first paragraph, the writer makes the text more interesting to read. In passage B, the tone is more formal and is also slightly negative as the positive effects of social media have not been mentioned. Passage A has used a bit of positivity by mentioning that tennagers/young adults have reduced the use of social media but in passage B, there is no positivity related to social networking sites.

The structure of passage A is a newspaper article and it is mainly for adults, young adults and people who read newspapers whereas passage B is from an online article which shows that it is mainly for young adults and people interested in the harmful effects of social media. As the passages are mainly directed towards young adults, they feel as if they need to stop or reduce the use of social media.

In passage A the author has used jargons such as “Facebook”, “Myspace”. Similarly in passage B, the author has used jargons like “Twitter”,”Bebo”. By using jargons, both the writers have added emphasis to the text and by using professional language, the passages become more believable and the reader feels as if the writer knows a lot about the topic.

Similarly, in passage A and B both, the writers have used a lot of facts and figures. For example, in passage A, “21% in 2007, 15-24 year olds” and in passage B, “More than 150 million”. By using facts and figures, the writers support their point of views believable evidence.

The vocabulary used in passage A is a little heavier than the words used in passage B. For example, “proliferation, “adolescent”, “exodus”. This adds more weight to passage A and as passage A was more informal, these words and a bit of formality to the text. But in passage B, the vocabulary used is easier than passage A, for example, “constant”, “instant”, “exposure”. As the tone in passage A is more formal, to balance the ratio of formality and informality, the writers have added heavy vocabulary where needed to make the text seem more authoritative.

Both the passages have used expert opinions to support their text. For example, the author of passage A has taken opinions from “Peter Philips”, “James Thickett” and in passage B, the opinions have been taken from “Baroness Greenfield”, “Jane Healy”. As both the writers have shared opinions of different people, both the texts become more believable to the reader at mentioning the person who said the dialogue makes the text more informative.

The theme of both the passages is same as both texts are mainly talking about the harmful effects of social media but the content is a little different. Passage A is talking about how “teenagers or young adults” have left social networking sites as the title suggests but passage B is talking about how social websites harm “childrens” brains. Both the texts are talking about different age groups which shows the reader that there are different point of views about social media’s harmful effects.

Both passage A and passage B have used humor in the text. For example, in passage A, “mothers investing in ra-ra skirts”, “uncles wearing skinny jeans” and in passage B, “small babies need constant reassurance that they exist”. By using humor, the authors have toned down the serious mood in the text and have made it more interesting to the reader.

The author of passage A has not used any inclusive language but the author of passage B has, for example, “We know how…they exist…”. By using this type of language, the author includes the reader in the text and grabs the readers attention. Even though passage A hasn’t used inclusive language, its tone is more informal which also grabs the readers attention.

Both the writers have a used a great deal of evidence to support the text and have used different techniques to engage the reader. Even though the tone and style of writing of both passages is different, both the writers have successfully conveyed their messages in different ways.

Formal Letter: Effect of Social Networking Sites on Teenagers By Abubakr Faisal

House # 4,

Surrey Street,

Privet Drive,

London

 

Building # 3,

Downing Street,

London,

Greater London

 

Subject: Effect of Social Networking Sites on Teenagers

 

Dear MR Jeremy Colt,

 

It is stated that the undersigned is writing is writing this letter to inform the addressee about the investigation regarding the effects and holds of social media networking sites on teenagers. The undersigned is very happy to tell the addressee that this investigation was a total success and the undersigned has acquired good results of the investigation.

 

In this investigation, the undersigned investigated he hold of social networking sites on teenagers. The effects of social networking sites and teenagers and the viewpoint of teenagers themselves regarding these effects of social media.

 

The undersigned obtained these during their investigation:

2007. The trends in the lives of teenagers are drastically changing since 2007. Teenagers who once wore a complete school uniform have now started wearing T-shirts and sweatshirts just because of some students who wanted to be casual at school and posted about their opinion on social media. People who saw the posts follow in the steps of these students.
2008. Schools which do not require the students to wear uniforms have also been affected. Where people wore decent clothes and were well-dressed, now they have started wearing clothes which are a little ripped from places. Even the teachers have ditched jeans and have started wearing skirts to school just because they follow their favorite filmstar or singer on social media.

• A recent case study shows that where people started using social media from the age of 34, now it has dropped to the age of 25 in the last two years. It is expected that this age limit is expected to drop from 25 all the way down to 15 as more teenagers flood the market of social media.

1. A research done by the undersigned shows that while the age limit is decreasing for the usage of social media, the downloads of the social media applications have been increasing. The research was based on the decreasing age limits and the results showed that the downloads of the social media applications have increased from 40% to 46% in the last two years and is expected to rise from this 46% to 55%. This means that more than half of the world will be expected to use social media and the main reason for this will be teenagers flooding the markets of social media.

 

These were the holds of social media on teenager. Now let the undersigned inform the addressee about the effects of social media on teenagers.

 

The effects of social media in this investigation are only some of the dangers to teenagers. More affects are being studied but the investigated ones are as follows:

1. Neuroscientist Baroness Greenfield has told the undersigned that these social networking are ‘rewiring’ the brains of teenagers due to repeated exposure. “It is like a drug”, says Greenfield. “Once it is taken, the person who took it gets addicted to it and this addiction is then hard to overcome as it changes the code of brain and how it is supposed to function.” Hence the word ‘rewiring’.
2. These neuroscientists also believe that using too much social media decreases the attention spans of teenagers. Teachers at Froebels International School were interviewed by the undersigned and they stated that teens had poor attention spans and they lacked the ability to communicate or concentrate away from their screens.

• The undersigned conducted an experiment which involved people who used social media everyday for atleast three hours. The undersigned found out that these people lacked the ability to understand others and were much more comfortable using their computers and phones to communicate. This confirms the theory of neuroscientist Baroness Greenfield that social media ‘rewires’ the brains of teenagers.

 

The undersigned conducted another experiment and found out that only 25-30% of the teenagers interviewed wanted to stop using social media but more that 70% were alright using it. It was very disappointing to find that all these teenagers were not concerned about their lives. The undersigned hopes that scientists find a solution to this problem because if this keeps up, this generation is going to find it hard to progress further in the future.

It is hoped that the addressee finds the above information useful and relevant t the cause and employs it to further the same.

 

Yours sincerely,

Abubakr Faisal

 

AO3:Cool Cyber Kids and Social Networking Sites by Mohsin Raza

AO2 (Second):Social Websites Harm Children’s Brains by Mohsin Raza