RAB source entry 2– Leslie

Part 1: MLA citation

Grose, Jessica. “Opinion | Teenagers Report Growing Anxiety. Maybe That’s Rational.” The New York Times, 2 Apr. 2022. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/02/opinion/cdc-teenagers.html.  

Part 2: Summary

In the opinion editorial article, “Teenagers Report Growing Anxiety. Maybe That’s Rational,” Jessica Grose is about how we should focus on the mental health of teens. Moriah Balingit who writes for the Washington Post said that adolescents’ mental health was already on the downward slide between 2009 and 2019 at 26% but then rose to 37%. The concerns for the mental health of adolescents were already rising before the pandemic. According to Grose, it is important to pay close attention to the fact that teens are reporting such high levels of stress and that everyone should keep in mind the way social media is being used. Many of them could be feeling a certain way that could lead to their mental health turning into something that can change their life tremendously. The writer concludes with a way she thinks can be something that could be beneficial to do, “The internet, and our reliance on it as a tool, isn’t going away. We need to help our kids live with it in a way that protects their mental health, rather than freaking out about how it’s destroying them.”  

Part 3: Reflection

Now that I have read this article, I think that it is an interesting article that affects everyone in some way whether it’s recent or not. For instance, when the pandemic was over, and we all returned to our normal lives, I found it difficult to reconnect back with my friends at school. I had forgotten what it was like to have a normal conversation with them when I got to see them. It was awkward at first but soon I was able to start to talk with them more than just say hi or to just wave at them. I do believe that we should focus on our mental health. Yes, we might not sometimes have the time to, but I think that we should all take a short break once in a while to regain a healthy mind. Even though this article seems to specifically talk about teenagers’ mental health, I believe that it can affect anyone regardless of their age.  I was able to learn from this article what the author in her opinion thinks is the big leading factor causing stress in teenagers. I was also able to learn how there are different factors that could influence our state of mind to decline. One of those factors was social media as the author said but I think that some people also struggle with money which can lead to them feeling stressed by their jobs or keeping up with their. I was also able to learn from this article what the author in her opinion thinks is the big leading factor to causing stress in teenagers. I think the author could discuss the other factors involved in our daily lives to include in her article. I also think that she should include how it affects teenagers at school. How do they cope with their mental health? What do they think could be affecting their anxiety? These were some of the thoughts I had while reading the article.  

Part 4: Rhetorical Analysis

The author of this opinion piece article is Jessica Grose. Grose wrote this article in April of 2022. Grose is a journalist and novelist who offers her perspective on the American family, culture, politics, and the way we live now. The The New York Times a credible source because it is one of the most widely read newspapers in the United States and has been a fixture of American print news for over 150 years. The publication has won far more Pulitzer Prizes than any other media company in U.S. history, with its first being awarded for its coverage of World War I, and more recently has been recognized for its investigative dives into gender and race dynamics in the United States. In addition to generally high perceptions of the publication’s trustworthiness among U.S. citizens, most Americans also find it to be accurate in its reporting. The audience for this article would be the general public but the primary one I would say is the experts who don’t believe that teenagers can also get stressed out from time to time. The author is trying to show that it is important to help teenagers with their mental health and that it is a big issue that not many people find problematic. The genre of this article is an opinion piece. This is the best for the article since the author wants to express what she thinks on this topic. The author uses logos by showing us the statistics of what has been discovered. The author uses pathos by reassuring us that life can be hard and that nothing is ever easy. Ethos by mentioning who or where she got her facts from.  

Part 5: Notable quotable

1. “Concerns about adolescents’ mental health were rising before the pandemic: Teens had been reporting poor mental health at higher rates. Between 2009 and 2019, the percentage of teens who reported having “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26% to 37%.” (Moriah Balingit) 

2. Life has always been hard, and being a teenager has always been hard. Being a teenager with abusive parents, or one who is food insecure, has always been particularly hard. (Grose)  

3. “Analyzing survey responses of more than 84,000 people of all ages in Britain, the researchers identified two distinct periods of adolescence when heavy use of social media spurred lower ratings of “life satisfaction”: first around puberty- ages 11 to 13 for girls, and 14 to 15 for boys.” (Virginia Hughes, a times writer)