The Digital Parent Trap Summary

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Recommended: Risks with children using technology

In the article, “The Digital Parent Trap”, author Eliana Dockterman reveals the benefits of introducing technology to the youth. Dockterman’s purpose for this is to expose to parents that it is beneficial to expose technology to the early age. She utilizes a formal tone in order to effectively persuade her readers to believe in the pros more than the cons of screen time. Throughout the article, Dockterman successfully builds her argument by utilizing evidence, appealing to the emotions of her audience, and inductive reasoning. Ar first, Dockterman begins her argument by utilizing logical evidence throughout her article. This not only creates a sense of professionalism but revealing to the audience that she has done her research and has knowledge …show more content…

For example, when Dockterman states, "..Actively browsing pages on a computer or tablet is way more brain stimulating than vegging out in front of a TV,". By including this in her article, While others might view this as false and/or an act of being lazy, Dockterman is building up the audience’s emotions and changing their views on how they see technology. Also, by including words such as “Cyber-bullying”, “Depressed”, and “Insecure”, which can be eye-catching to the reader. By appealing to the emotions of her audience’s, by her choice of words and phrases, Dockterman is able to persuade her reader to believe and agree with her on her stance about early welcoming to technology. Lastly, Dockterman persuades her audience to believe in technology is beneficial to the youth by inductive reasoning. This is done by her including about the negativity of technology. However, she counters this with reasoning to her readers that there are more pros than cons. Yes, she includes her own personal feedback but it’s in a way where it’s less likely to be seen as biased. She does this by stating, “...monitoring is key. But parents should keep an open mind about benefits of tech fluency.", saying that yes it can be troublesome; however, the benefits overcome the

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