In the research paper published by author Jazmin Gonzalez, she writes on the effect of social media in today’s society. The outlook of this author was to try to persuade the audience to use the technology wisely or else it could make various effects in everyday living. Living in a century where generations are being born in a time without having to experience not having technology around them, people such as students, parents and  one self should be concerned with the possible dangers and how it could impact them. As the author explains methods of preventing psychological and physical health damages, she uses specific type of artifacts to persuade the reader on her opinions.
Rhetorical analysis such as ethos, pathos, and logos all useful as a way to persuade the audience and touching them in a way to understand the topic. The author in her paper uses pathos to get in touch with the audience of who should be concerned on this matter, such as in paragraph number three, she discusses the use of social media accounts such as facebook, twitter etc. All these applications are all very popular amongst different audiences ranging from pre-teens to adults. This can make the reader concerned about the amount of time they themselves or someone they really care about who use the internet could be affected negatively if used for a long period of time. The use of ethos comes into the paper as she uses the cultural aspect and acknowledging the fact that today nearly everyone is using technology, being aware that in today’s culture we are being exposed to so many different forms of dangers the readers are drawn to be more engaged . Lastly the use of logos was used in the paper by using statistical data and credible sources to back up her body paragraphs, also by the uses of several images that will allow to visually see the results from other research papers and make a connection on the concern of the author.
While reading the research paper on the effects of technology on a person I noticed the author did not just write about the negative effects, but also the positive. In the 2nd paragraph the beginning of the first body paragraph she discusses the effects of too much internet affecting interpersonal relationships and towards the end of the research paper she discussed on another aspect of technology which was the positive side stating that with technology a group such as the dove campaign is promoting body positivity and self confidence. On here the author uses the power of addressing two possible audiences that might be reading her paper, known as rogerian style, one that might not agree and one that may. Although she uses a positive impact of technology on her paper while she is trying to make readers aware of how negatively technology could affect us will not steer the paper off into another direction but rather not have a dispute on amongst others who are only set that technology has no effect psychologically
In conclusion, as the author Jazmin Gonzalez writes her research paper, the use of rhetorical appeals and organization method allows the audience to better understand why one should be concerned living in a culture of technology. The persuasion topic on why the consumer of technology should be careful on how the internet and social media is used, may be seen as such a controversial topic. The way the author lays out and displays and interprets her information and thoughts lets the audience grasp into her persuasive side and understand where she is coming from.

Technology has nearly taken over our lives, today more than 6.8 million people have a hand held devices such as a cell phone or tablet that have access to anything in the social media world. Generations are being born into this modern era without ever NOT experiencing what it is like to live without technology. Today, a lot of paperwork is done online such as professors posting work their, students turning in work and of course making communication more easier and convenient for the consumer. The help of technology many students have easy reach to getting educational help, as well as making it a very easier way to communicate with others through text or phone call everywhere you are. The use of technology as a source of entertainment has become a big thing. The use of these new technologies have both made positive and negative effects into our society. The more we have learned to live with it the harder it may seem to not be without it. As technology continues to develop people are more drawn into using technology as a form of communication, if used badly this can play a role in the level of self esteem and unhealthy mental development.

Self-esteem is the confidence that one has within oneself. The influence of self-esteem does not just come from within but it varies from what a person is being exposed to. If a person lacks self-esteem it could bring them into feeling some type of depression and have no self worth in themselves. From kids to adolescents to adults the effects on the self esteem could become a serious problem and create bad social behavior. Developing such problem will cause a major setback in their lives. As technology develops more and more everyday we are being exposed to so many possibilities of making new online friends, finding role models, such as celebrities, and communicating with your friends. Too much internet use can cause a hindrance in interpersonal relationships. Dr Kate Robert a boston school psychologist makes notices in the way a child is focussed on so much screen time could completely wash out and feed them new ideas that may be bad(2014) . Often with so much social interaction with online communication, it could make people feel like they are being active enough, when in reality they are more prone to being lazier and develop a non social/introvert behavior in person. If we distinguish good technology use from bad, we all can use this in the most productive way without making any harm in the mental health of a human.

Popular social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat create a virtual community full of ones friends, family and even strangers. Social networking is a dedicated website or other application that enables users to communicate with each other by posting information, comments, messages, images, etc. More than 200 million users sign in everyday into their accounts to interact with one another. Beyond the obvious possible dangers of strangers knowing your personal information you post, Spending so much time on these websites can be a very unhealthy form of lifestyle.  Researchers have found that between two variables, one the frequency of facebook use and the other being self-esteem, found a correlation between higher self comparison and lower self esteem than those with low frequency use of Facebook. Out of the 145 grad students that were studied the results were that out of those who were targeted to have used Facebook more frequently gave themselves lower self esteem scores. (Vogel, E. 2014). In The NetGirls Project ran by Dr Amy Slater studied the effects of adolescent girls who over use social media per day, 40.1 % of the 1096 girls studied were dissatisfied with their body and the average use time of the internet was 3.5 hours. (2012) The reason why is because on these social media websites you are more compelled to looking and posting things about your personal life, while viewing others as well. As one is viewing many of these artifacts you by nature try to compare their life to yours. The way that others portray their “perfect” life could cause more dissatisfaction with another person’s life.

Online dating websites are also becoming such a big thing for those who have a harder time finding a partner in real life. These people tend to try to date other people who seem interested in each other and create a “match” by pure online communication. Websites such as Eharmony, Tinder, and Match.com are all examples of dating websites that allow for those in search of another intimate partner to find them through the palm of their hands. On  “The Effects of Online Relationships on Face-to-Face Relationships” , Internet infidelity is becoming common, those who were surveyed said that they went online to chat with their online partner after their partner had gone to bed or were at work and 41% of the chat users survey thought that cyber sex was not considered cheating on their partner (Pace, Reid, Santarelli).  Using online dating websites in an inappropriate way can create a barrier with a face-to-face relationship, making communication with face-to-face relationships less commons and communication with other partners via the web a more common and easier form of communication. If this progresses one will get used to the idea of ignoring real life problems and going online for things such an intimate partner too. Will online dating become a new real world for those out their ?

Online communication can become a bad habit to some, but also what you see on tv can have a negative impact on someone’s mental health and way of thinking. In this current time, TV is a huge form of entertainment. From looking at movies to watching the morning news, there’s always a form of message that the mass media sends to their audience. MTV is a channel full of shows directed for teenagers and early twenties viewers. One show in particular has caused a big controversy on how teenagers are viewing being a teenage mother, called Teen Mom. In this reality show, they portray several teenagers who are pregnant and face different challenges from being a teenage mother. Some will argue that their has been a drop in teenage pregnancy in America since that show, but on the other hand in a survey conducted by Indiana University, they compared college students responses of watching Teen mom about being a teenager with a kid versus to those in Brazil that watched soap operas. In teen mom they glamorized so much of having a baby so young that the majority of the college students surveys said that being a teen parents seemed easy, accessible financial help and having a baby doesn’t necessarily represents ending your education. Those who were surveyed in Brazil over the soap operas they watched 62% said that they would rethink their action and be careful for unwanted pregnancies. In Brazil there is also a lower teen pregnancy rate than in the United States(Scribner, 2014). Reality shows sometimes paint the picture of an easy life for the purpose of entertainment, many of these teenagers viewing these shows are so drawn into it that they might not even notice how a TV show can influence their decisions on having a baby at such a young age and not being so careful with protecting themselves. Brazil Tv shows demonstrate more of a family oriented type of TV show that reflect more to real life.

The improvement of technology has also made use of the improvement of the camera quality that could be found on your webcam, cellphone etc. The mobile application Instagram is another form of a social community online where the only form of communication is through posting pictures or videos. Selfies are known as pictures that one takes of themselves, they then post it into websites such as instagram for the purpose to show their followers a peek of their life, in return for ratings of what they post.  Dove’s campaign demonstrated that 67% of women’s own worst critic was within themselves. Comscore (2011) reported that more than 90 percent of U.S. Internet users visit a social media site each month, and a high number of ‘likes’ is no longer just a measure of popularity. In real life we try to show people who we are, but it seems like in social media we only post for positive feedback.  The positive feedback in someone’s appearance makes themselves feel good and satisfied. Those who don’t get the same attention as what they wish they would’ve had through their selfie may seem more dissatisfied and make one feel self conscious.The necessity that is now arising from selfies to feel accepted by taking selfies and searching for likes, makes one feel more satisfied with their appearance.

The bad effect on someone’s mental health through online relationship could create bad social habits. Another show that’s brought major focus and drama filled is a show on MTV called Catfish. In this show 2 people have been online dating for a while, with no other form of communication other than text messages or phone calls, then one person shows signs that the person whom they are talking to may not be the person they had been passing for, typically another person using a different identity. According to Katelyn McKenna (Bargh, McKenna, & Fitzsimons, 2002; McKenna, Green, & Gleason, 2002), each of us has traits that we feel we possess, but are reluctant to express to others. These traits are often ones that we are scared to express, and not show as our true identity. People in the show Catfish after revealing themselves usually have a big insecurity, and the reason why they had stolen someone’s picture or not shown themselves was because  they wanted to show who they actually were instead of being judged by appearance. Online relationships sometimes form into a bad habit when someone is already self conscious of themselves, instead of progressing with their own mental stability of socializing they put their emotions aside, finding the temporary pleasure of socializing being hidden behind a computer screen , decreasing the amount of social interaction they will make.

The ability to persuade a buyer to buy products often stereotype people into what is attractive to the eye. There are commercial nearly in every wall, and photoshop has been a big impact on picture today. The form of mass media creates standard “guidelines” to what a female and male are suppose to like.  In an experimental and controlled study done by the University of Wisconsin they studied the behavior between those who were more exposed to images of women who were thin, they noticed a pattern that TV portrays many of the main girl characters to be thin and advertising models to be thing as well. The variables measure where the media consumption and the woman’s body image. (Grabe,461). The repeated exposure of these images makes an image of what is suppose to be reality in ones mind, With photoshot they fix a photo shoot into making the models skinny and perfect and guy buff and handsome. Although with these uses of photoshop they create an insecurity in the viewers that don’t reach those standards of beauty that today all the ads are portrayed to be of perfect people on the cover of magazines.

Lower self esteem is not always the result from using these sources. In this modern time, we need to learn how to conform with the usage of technology  into a positive impact rather than a negative one. Dove has been working in a project called the Dove Self-Esteem Campaign, in this they conducted a study to realize what affects woman felt about themselves resulting that all of them had a very negative explanation of their features compared to themselves when they are describing other people. Engaging with each other to fight back against these self-esteem issues that may rise from how women are portrayed through the media. During this project they studied a group of women who were asked to browse facebook for 20 minutes and others to browse the internet about rainforest information, resulting in greater body dissatisfaction amongst those who were browsing through social media accounts. The dove project helps one see that social media does not need to be negative amongst young female viewers (Weiner, 2014). The dove campaign uses technology in a positive manner to enforce good self image behavior towards women, they use all types of women of all different shapes and sizes to demonstrate that beauty comes in every single type of shape, race, etc. They use technology as a source to make a change in someone’s lives as oppose to  just advertise. The positive reinforcement that the Dove Campaign uses makes a movement through higher self esteem within oneself.

There is no arguing that we today have a co-dependance on technology. From writing our essay to making business conference calls, the high speed technology that has been evolving has made many processes much faster and convenient. Using technology for education has opened up a whole new world on how a student can learn. A major computer advantage  “with computers as tutors, no
student will be overwhelmed because he or she is missing fundamentals the computer will repeat material until each lesson has been sufficiently mastered” (Patrice, 2003, p. 230). Sometimes students have a hard time keeping along with the pace of the class. This will often make them feel like there’s something wrong with them when they just learn in a different pace or manner from others. With the help of technology such as computers and online schooling a student has the ability to look into each lesson they feel the do not fully understand and they can relearn the material whenever they want or need to. Technology if used wisely it could open a whole bunch of new possibilities, such as learn new things and be more open to learning in different ways that one did not think they can achieve.

Overall, while there are many upsides of technology such as for educational purposes some may fall into the bad habits of social media. The effects on being exposed to many different types of messages can make one feel very self conscious of themselves and not content. Educating people to accept who they are and not be influenced by things as comparisons of others lives and be happy with who they really are inside, will save a lot of emotional and mental distress that could easily be developed. It is easy to understand why someone may get drawn in or addicted to something that seems entertaining, kind of like a new toy for a kid. It still is a new toy for use that we are learning how to use. We have become so dependent on such devices that without it we may seem lost at times. The importance of educating those around us to stop these bad habits from forming will help not only us but your future friends, kids, or siblings from ever being in a bad position with technology. Our purpose is to not get lost in the technology but progress with it.  Creating a balance between real world and the tech world would make a good outcome into this shift we are all experiencing with new high speed technology. Technology is evolving quickly, we are going to be moving forward with it, and the best way to evolve into this tech world is to learn from it.  

Refrences:

Adolescent Girls and Body Image. (2001, November). Retrieved May 06, 2016, from http://www.naswdc.org/practice/adolescent_health/ah0204.asp

Grabe, Shelly, Monique L. War, and Janet Hyde. “The Role of the Media in Body Image Concerns Among Women.” 0033-2909/08/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.134.3.460 The Role of the Media in Body Image Concerns Among Women: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental and Correlational Studies (n.d.): n. pag. 2008. Web. 20 May 2016.

Patrice, Kathlynn. “Pros and Cons of Digital Textbooks Technology."Psychological and Pedagogical Considerations in Digital Textbook Use and Development (n.d.): 227-47. Spring 2003. Web. 13 May 2016.

Ridolfi, D. R., Myers, T. A., Crowther, J. H., & Ciesla, J. A. (2011). Do appearance focused cognitive distortions moderate the relationship between social comparisons to peers and media images and body image disturbance? Sex Roles, 65(7-8), 491-505. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11199-011-9961-0

Slater, A.,Adolescent girls who over use internet and social media suffer lower self-esteem and negative body image. (2012, Jul 02). Targeted News Service Retrieved from http://moe.highline.edu:2158/docview/1023189061?accountid=1327

Scribner, H. (2014, Jan 18). Are TV shows decreasing teen pregnancy? Deseret News Retrieved from http://moe.highline.edu:2158/docview/1490537270?accountid=1327

Vogel, E. A., Rose, J. P., Roberts, L. R., & Eckles, K. (2014). Social comparison, social media, and self-esteem. Psychology Of Popular Media Culture, 3(4), 206-222. doi:10.1037/ppm0000047  

Weiner, J. (2014, June 27) The impact of Social Media and Body Image: does social networking actually trigger body body obsession in today’s teenage girls? Dove Self-esteem Project.

Summary of my article: 

Serena Gordon

Social Media has Good and Bad Effects on Kids: Experts

March 28, 2011

Database found on Proquest http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/childrens-health/articles/2011/03/28/social-media-has-good-and-bad-effects-on-kids-experts

Summary :

In “Social Media has Good and Bad Effects on Kids: Experts” by Serena Gordon, she discusses both the good and bad sides of social media, particularly Facebook.com.  Facebook is used as a way to form communication with peers, but using these sites at the correct age will lower the risk of bad behavior in kids, such as cyberbullying and teaching kids to lie about their age to create an online profile. In “Pediatrics” they surveyed students about how often they are on their social media accounts, resulting that most logged in at least 10 or more times a day. Preteens who spend so much time in facebook can also come across a term called “Facebook Depression”, where they show signs of depression and different social behaviors when spending too much time online. Although it is a good entertainment and communicating device, if used incorrectly it could shape kids behavior wrong.

RESPONSE: In “Can a Plant Grow on Mars and the Moon” I found interesting that plants have the ability to grow in space, and maybe even slightly better than the plants we are able to grow here on earth. The testing of 3 different types of artificial soil of the moon, mars, and river rhine soil was interesting to see the different types of effects that results from using outerspace material compared to soil that you could get from earth. From these the most that had an effect on plant growth out of the mars and moon was the mars soil.  In the article the author states “Metals like aluminium and chromium are also present in the extra-terrestrial soils. Aluminium is known to disturb plant growth and even lead to plant death.”, I feel like this kind of makes the article confusing to the reader in the introduction since it explain a lot of why it shouldn’t be possible to grow plants such as lack of nitrogen, water, and aluminum is present in mars, so i found that the title and the introduction seemed to be a bit confusing. Also it talked a lot of the term germination, but did not give a good definition for those who are reading unaware of these terms. The authors and organization of their study was credible, it divided into subsections that allowed for easy follow. Overall I feel like their research was not strong enough since they had a lot more questions that were left unanswered such as in their conclusion and in their results they both stated that if they had made some corrections in the type of nutrients or setting they placed the plant they could’ve gotten more responsive results from the plants, but it can be understandable since finding material from mars and moon can be very expensive. 

http://arminajournalarticle.blogspot.com/search?q=Mars