With Every Solution, A New Problem Arises Alcohol has been consumed since 10000 BC (Hanson 1). However, unlike now, alcohol was sometimes better than drinking water because of waters’ high risk of carrying diseases. Alcohol wasn’t looked at the way it is looked at now. Barrette Seaman, a New York Times editor wrote a book called Binge: What Your College Kid Won’t Tell You, examining college students’ behavior and reports on the issues of college students. After collecting the information, Seaman then wrote an essay about the information he gathered. However, Seaman wasn’t just observing any college behavior, specifically he was monitoring alcohol consumption amongst college kids. Through the use of rhetorical appeals such as Ethos and Logos and artistic proofs, Seaman strives to persuade the older generation that the drinking age should be lowered to eighteen, by writing about a controversial topic, Seaman thus generates a source of income for himself. There is one thing in life that we as humans can never seem to have enough of, money, which means that we will do almost anything to get money. Now Seaman, just like every other hard working American wants to receive a paycheck. Unfortunately, as a writer in today’s competitive market, it is difficult to be a writer and get paid for it; which is why Seaman wrote about a topic that has been debated over countless of times. In Seaman’s choosing of this topic, he strives to create an argument that will challenge his readers, thus creating more readers of his work, which generates income for him. However, he also had another intended purpose. Seaman wanted to target a specific group of people he knew he could generate a reaction out of. His main audience is gen... ... middle of paper ... ...l restricted when given the ability to consume alcohol. Although Seaman correctly used rhetorical appeals in his writing, Seaman’s efforts have been for nothing. Even if his readers are convinced that lowering the drinking age could help save lives, his argument will not change anything. Seaman himself proved that the minimum drinking age being set at twenty-one has saved countless of lives. However, maybe Seaman got exactly what he wanted. Seaman’s essay “ appeared in Time”, which, whether intentional or not, generated a source of income for Seaman. Works Cited Hanson, David J. "History of Alcohol and Drinking around the World." History of Alcohol and Drinking around the World. Praeger, 1995. Web. 03 Mar. 2014. Seaman, Barrett. "How Bingeing Became The New College Sport.” McGraw Hill Boston, 2008.Print.
In the New York times article “Lower the Drinking age to 19” Mr.Steinberg points out the importance of why it might be more beneficial to the United States to lower the current drinking age. He debunked the common belief of underage drinking being linked to highway accidents, he explains instead of raising the drink age maybe we just raise the driving age to 18. He states that “Moreover countries that use 18 for both the drinking and driving age generally have safer highways that the United States.” Laurence Steinberg lower the drinking age New York times. Laurence then talk about the only reason why a higher drinking age would make sense is in the case
Scrivo, K. (1998, March 20). Drinking on campus. CQ Researcher, 8, 241-264. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/
“80 percent of teen-agers have tried alcohol, and that alcohol was a contributing factor in the top three causes of death among teens: accidents, homicide and suicide” (Underage, CNN.com pg 3). Students may use drinking as a form of socializing, but is it really as good as it seems? The tradition of drinking has developed into a kind of “culture” fixed in every level of the college student environment. Customs handed down through generations of college drinkers reinforce students' expectation that alcohol is a necessary ingredient for social success. These perceptions of drinking are the going to ruin the lives of the students because it will lead to the development alcoholism. College students who drink a lot, while in a college environment, will damage themselves mentally, physically, and socially later in life, because alcohol adversely affects the brain, the liver, and the drinkers behavior.
According to Smith,?Reports of binge drinking come from all types of campuses across the country. In 1992, researchers reported that more college students were drinking to get drunk than their counterparts a decade earlier, and one recent study reported an increase, just since 1994, in the number of students who drink deliberately to get drunk. Smith - 1. I interviewed my friend Shelly Mitchell, who recently turned twenty-one, and asked her how she felt about finally being legal to drink. She quoted,?It is not as exciting to drink anymore,
Muhlenfeld, Elisabeth. “Seeking a Drinking Age Debate.” University Business 11.10 (2008): 53-4. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 Mar. 2010.
In the 1600's and 1700's, the American colonists drank large quantities of beer, rum, wine, and hard cider. These alcoholic beverages were often safer to drink than impure water or unpasteurized milk and also less expensive than coffee or tea. By the 1820's, people in the United States were drinking, on the average, the equivalent of 7 gallons of pure alcohol per person each year (“drinkingprohibition” 1). As early as the seventeenth century, America was showing interest towards prohibition. Some people, including physicians and ministers, became concerned about the extent of alcohol use (“There was one...” 1). They believed that drinking alcohol damaged people's health and moral behavior, and promoted poverty. People concerned about alcohol use u...
Most people point to wars, Presidents or the economy when asked to describe the history of the United States, but what about alcohol. Social history in general has always taken a back seat to political and economic history, mostly because many aspects of social history are not exactly bright spots from the past. Alcohol, for example, is actually a much bigger aspect of our history than one may expect. As a matter of fact, early America was centered around drinking as a kind of social event. William Rorabaugh’s book Alcoholic Republic outlines how prevalent drinking really was during the years after the Revolutionary War. Rorabaugh argues that post-colonial Americans should be considered alcoholics. However, the evidence Rorabaugh uses
Time to Lower the Drinking Age? U.S. News -. U.S. News & World Report, L.D., 07 May, 2014. Web. The Web.
Using fear, while not aggressively, Silveri highlights the fact that excessive alcohol consumption is the third leading leading cause of preventable death. The author discusses this topic in a way that seems to be to scare anybody she is trying to convince. A mother reading this could worry about her daughter, or a young man in college who drinks often could take his drinking habits far more seriously after reading something like that. Also, ending the article on an optimistic note, she allows the reader to have some hope. Silveri mentions the reduction of maladaptive alcohol use through better recognition of the negative tendencies that comes with alcohol abuse in adolescents. (Adolescent Brain Development and Underage Drinking in the United States: Identifying Risks of Alcohol Use in College
Warsh, Cheryl Krasnick. ""John Barleycorn Must Die": An Introduction to the Social History of Alcohol ." In Drink in Canada: Historical Essays , by Cheryl Karsnick Warsh, 3-26. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993. (SUNY Stony Brook HV 5306.D75 1993)
Weshler, Henry, and Wuethrich, Bernice. Dying to Drink: Confronting Binge Drinking on college campuses. Chicago: Rodale Inc., 2002. Print.
The debate of whether the minimum legal drinking age should be lowered or not has been around for many years even since the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 raised the MLDA to age 21. Prior to that, the government has t...
Binge or excessive drinking is the most serious problem affecting social life, health, and education on college campuses today. Binge or excessive drinking by college students has become a social phenomena in which college students do not acknowledge the health risks that are involved with their excessive drinking habits. Furthermore college students do not know enough about alcohol in general and what exactly it does to the body or they do not pay attention to the information given to them. There needs to be a complete saturation on the campus and surrounding areas, including businesses and the media, expressing how excessive drinking is not attractive and not socially accepted.
Eighteen year olds all over the United States are arguing for the drinking age to be lowered. “I can fight and die for this country, so why can’t I crack a beer,” many college students argue (Daniloff). Henry Wechsler, a Lecturer in the Department of Society, Human Development, and Health at the Harvard School of Public Health, found that, “in 2001, 77.4% of underage college students drank alcohol. Furthermore, half of the students under 21 years of age reported that they found alcohol very easy to obtain” (Vecchia). We all know that gaining access to alcohol is easy and drinking in college is even easier. So why shouldn’t the drinking age be lowered to eighteen? Regardless of what the law argues, underage drinking is going to occur. Besides, at age eighteen you legally an adult, you have the power to make your own decisions, consuming and buying alcohol should be one of them. I believe the drinking age should not only be lowered because as adults we have the right to making our own choices, but also because, underage drinking is becoming very common in college to make friends and fit in, and more people underage are easily gaining access to alcohol with fake identifications cards or from other people.
Most people do not realize that alcohol is a drug that claims the lives of youth in college campuses across the world. In my case, it took the encounter with the ORL staff at UCLA for me to come to understanding that I am putting myself and those around me in danger through my risky drinking habits. With hours of self-reflection and the help of a cosmopolitan article called The Deadly Drinking Mistakes Smart Girls Make, I have found that there are several risks associated with alcohol that can put me at a quarrel with death. Even so, drinking does not always need to be deadly, and by keeping in mind the well-being of my fellow bruins and the skills mentioned in the article, I can find a balance between drinking for fun and drinking till death.