Technology is like an atom that “infused” into our life. We use Yelp when we need some place for dinner, Instagram to see how Taylor Swift is doing, Spotify when we need music, and even Bank of America has their own application. The so-called “iGeneration” describes us, people who were born after 1990. Members of this generation are relying on technology such as laptop, tablets, smartphones and other handheld devices. Mark Bauerlein, an English professor at Emory University claims that “[gadgets] have swept into young people’s lives with the dispatch and coerciveness of youth fad and age-old force of peer pressure bears down hard.” Besides, he claims that gadgets are the fundamental means of social communication. Therefore, teenagers' face-to-face contact has decreased compare to the past. Instead of interacting in person, teenagers choose to interact with each other at midnight in their bedroom and this makes face-to-face communication seem uninteresting and dull. I agree with Bauerlein’s points that are stated above. In my opinion, rapid advancement of technology brought convenience and benefits to us, but teenagers are misusing the technology.
Teenagers are easily influence by their surroundings. Bauerlein argues that “the age-old force of peer pressure bears down hard" (20). Teenagers love to compare among each other, and they can’t bear to lose. When you don’t have the same item with your friends, you have less common topics between you and your friends. The desire of having a gadget will never end because people surrounding you have it, even though you know that having a gadget is only for entertainment purposes. Bauerlein says that “When they lost [their gadgets], kids feel excluded and unpopular, and nothing hits a 16-year old harder than the disregard of other 16-year-old" (21). I experienced this during the launching of iPhone 4. When my friends started to buy an iPhone 4, I had the thought of havi...