The article "Don’t Take Away Your Teen’s Phone" by Lisa Guernsey was published in SLANT on August 10, 2017. The intended audience for this article is parents of teenagers who may feel troubled by their child's time on their phone. I also see this article directed toward parents who punish their children by taking away their phones. I do not fit directly into the intended audience, but as a person born in the early 2000s - I can relate to growing up in this new, ultra-digital world. The article that I looked at was published during a time when the discussion surrounding the relationship between technology and teenagers was becoming more prevalent. People (specifically parents) were starting to raise concerns about how smartphones were affecting …show more content…
To appeal to pathos - she uses her own (as well as her children's) experience to build the relatability (and credibility) of the article. Her likable yet urgent tone demands attention to the topic she is speaking upon while hooking parents (intended readers) with certain phrases such as “To my fellow parents” and “I suspect that we parents” which assume a form of community. To further appeal to the reader's emotions, the author uses her own experience as a parent to illustrate the issue and establish shared values with the audience. Furthermore, the article appeals to the reader's emotions further through the frustration felt by the author's daughter after reading the Atlantic article about her generation. The article also uses research to support the argument, such as research that shows “how teen happiness has taken a slight dip but on the whole is not all that different than it was last decade or the decade before that." This is an example of logos, but also is a form of pathos as it asks the reader to examine their experience and compare it to previous generations. Altogether, the combination of these rhetorical strategies in the article makes for a relatable and persuasive argument about the challenges of smartphones on