I found myself very irritated when reading Jean Twenge’s article called “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation”. Twenge’s arguments are very general and not representative of many teens, including myself. In a section of the article where Twenge discusses the amount of time teens spend on homework, she states claims that truly do not represent our whole generation, in my opinion. She writes, “If today’s teens were a generation of grinds, we’d see that in the data. But eighth-, 10th-, and 12th- graders in the 2010s actually spend less time on homework than Gen X did in the early 1990s” (7). She then continues to write, “High-school seniors headed for four-year colleges spend about the same amount of time on homework as their predecessors did” (7). She claims that students in younger high school grades are doing less homework because of their phones, however, students who are preparing for graduation are performing the same amount of work.
Has Tweneg considered the possibility that many teachers do not provide as much homework as older generation teachers provided? I clearly remember barely having homework assignments in middle school and early into high school. My older siblings have even expressed that they had received more homework than I had received in high school. School systems have changed and evolved and I do not believe phone usage is the primary cause for a decrease in work spent on assignments. Twenge’s uses the fact about high school seniors continuing the same amount of work in preparation for college as support for her argument, however, the application process for students headed for college has remained quite similar to Gen X. There is really not a strong correlation between phone usage and work load when applying to college because the amount of work required has remained the same. I disagree with many of Twenge’s claims and it felt as though she was bashing our generation without truly understanding what it is like to be a teen during this time.
I totally agree with you. I didn’t have a lot of homework through high school and it was actually kind of annoying because then I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I would eat and go to sleep.
I agree fully with your opening statement about the generalization of Twenge’s arguments. I found a lot of dissimilarities from her piece to my high school experience. I like how you provided evidence in your stance from your personal life that your older siblings had more homework than you did, I felt a similar experience with my brother even though he is only two years older than me.