Amy Goldwasser Analysis

“What’s the Matter with Kids Today?” is an article written by Amy Goldwasser, an author of young adult books. She has edited and written for various publications including, but not limited to Vogue magazine, The New York Times. Amy has been writing for many leading publishers for fifteen years. She currently lives in Manhattan where she teaches editing and writing in the Columbia Publishing Course and the Lower Eastside Girls Club. In this article, Goldwasser’s thesis is that although people think the internet is terrible for teenagers, the internet actually proves to be an educational resource with the advances of technology.
The internet is a great tool not only for teenagers but for people of all ages. With the internet, we can easily figure
out how to get from point A to point B, and we are capable of learning throughout history with just a click of a button.
After writing and editing for the past fifteen years, Amy Goldwasser has various types of experiences ranging from publishing, writing, and editing, to teaching. When Goldwasser volunteered at the Lower Eastside Girls Club in New York City, she volunteered to help teach young authors adapt their essays into screenplays for both television and theater for national publications. Such as Newsweek, and the Los Angeles Times. With all of Goldwasser’s experience through volunteer work, teaching, publishing, editing, and writing accurately expresses that she knows how to easily write accurately about a topic and edit it correctly.
In this article, the author uses different types of evidence such as statistics, her own opinions, and the opinion of others. An example of the author using statistics is when Goldwasser wrote “Ninety-seven percent of the teenagers in the Common Core survey connected “I have a dream” with its speaker and they can watch Dr. King deliver it on demand – and eight in ten people knew what “To Kill a Mockingbird” is about.” (Goldwasser, par. 5). This piece of evidence shows that teenagers can improve their learning through the internet to learn more about famous things in history, or reading a book from a famous author.
Amy Goldwasser picked opinions in the article by saying “this is also why it’s dangerous, why we can’t seem to recognize that it’s just a medium.
We’re afraid, because our kids know things we don’t.” (Goldwasser, par. 7). Teenagers have the ability to decide what becomes popular through the use of social media and the internet. They are the main reason why Apple products have become so popular and common; they made movies like “High School Musical” popular. Through their use and time on social media they were able to make the movie “Juno” an Oscar winner, made MySpace worth five hundred and eighty million dollars. Goldwasser stated “Besides, we’re tired of having to ask them every time we need to find Season 2 of “Heroes,” calculate a carbon footprint or upload photos to Facebook.” (Goldwasser, par. 8). A major reason parents think that the internet is melting their kid’s brains is because they just don’t seem to know how to do certain things with the internet without having to ask for help from a teenager. Parents also believe that teenagers are consistently blogging about them. As the author said “teenagers today read and write for fun; its part of their social lives. We need to start celebrating this unprecedented surge, incorporating it as an educational tool instead of meeting it with punishing pop quizzes and suspicion.” (Goldwasser, par. 14). Adults need to be able to start trusting their kids that what they do on the internet is not
wrong.
Goldwasser took the opinions of others into consideration when she wrote this article. She got the opinion of eighty-eight year old Lessing that the internet has “seduced a whole generation into its inanities.” (Goldwasser, par. 3). With the internet, teenagers are consistently drawn into the various features that it provides them. This leads adults to believe that the internet is brainwashing the teenagers in this generation, when in reality it is helping them in ways that no one else can.
She provides evidence throughout the article through examples, personal opinions of herself and others, and statistics she managed to write a convincing article about why the internet isn’t such a bad thing for teenagers to have access to. She has accurate evidence that she can support to help convey her message. Goldwasser shows both sides of the situation with the internet being a bad thing and the internet being a good thing. Then towards the end she hints at what her opinion of the internet is.
Amy Goldwasser is attempting to reach out to adults that are concerned about teenagers, and reassure teenagers that are trying to prove to adults that the internet is not a bad thing. She keeps a steady tone throughout the paragraph and reinforces her information; although her opinion is that the internet is good for teenagers, she still includes valid counter arguments as to why adults may think that it is such a terrible thing. Before she even begins her article, she foreshadows what her opinion of the topic is by saying “What’s the matter with kids today? Nothing, actually. Aside from our needless panic that the Internet is melting their brains.” She states that she doesn’t believe that there is anything wrong with kids today or the internet.
Goldwasser addresses the opposing argument by taking the opinions of adults that believe the internet is of no good use to teenagers. This is mentioned at the beginning of the third paragraph of her article when she states “Kids today – we’re telling you! – don’t read, don’t write, and don’t care about anything farther in front of them than their iPods.” This leads to the conclusion that parents believe teenagers only care about their electronics and internet, rather than caring for things like working, grades, etc. Throughout the article the author is very convincing with her opinion on the internet, if she has an audience of teenagers they would all most likely agree with the positive things she is stating and the opinion she has.
Finally, after reading the article the internet seems to be a helpful tool for teenagers and young adults to use. From analyzing the article the author uses strong arguments with clear and concise points. The author is capable of making a person believe her comments even when she was stating the opinions of adults whom believe that the internet is a terrible thing, from her persuasion. Her argument is reasonable with her not trying to fully persuade the audience, but her also stating facts and her own personal opinions. Goldwasser has complete accurate statistics and opinions throughout the article to use for her side of the story, and counter arguments for the opposing side’s opinion. The internet is a great tool for a teenager, there may be some negative aspects but the positive aspects from the internet out power it. Therefore, the internet really isn’t a bad thing; adults just always seem to think it is.