The Catcher In The Rye: An Analysis

Living in the era of technology,being a teenager means constantly being pressured by social media and criticized by people for the way a specific individual is.These negative impacts tend to affect how teens try to bury their true identity. All teens share the need of wanting to belong or fit in, even if that means redefining their true beliefs and principles. In the novel, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, teenagers like Holden, the protagonist, are constantly criticized by their peers, thus bringing down their self-esteem leading them to believe they aren’t meant to succeed in life. When teens are criticized by their friends, teachers, or family, it affects their personality and future decisions in many ways. For example, Holden

Conforming to Dr. Donna Wick, “kids text all sorts of things that would never in a million years contemplate saying to anyone’s face”(7). Teens are always looking to fit in and be happy, but they don’t seek out opportunities to interact with one another because they are so worried and caught up with social media and trying to fit in. Dr. Wick also confirms the emotional effect that social media has, “kids are often left imagining the worst about themselves” (17). If teenagers today are put in a situation where they are asked to express themselves or what their opinion is over a topic, they feel uncomfortable and awkward because they have grown accustomed to only expressing those types of emotions through a screen and not in person.Causing them to miss out on the real world, they “are learning to do most of their communication while looking at a screen, not another person” (2). Social media also creates the ideal of having false support for teens who are trying to find themselves by creating a false identity of themselves. For example, when teenagers go shopping for clothes, their attention goes directly to whatever everyone else is wearing on social media, they aren't interested in expressing themselves to their true identity because they only care about belonging. Today's

Today’s generation highly focuses only on competing and being better than their peers. A study by psychologist Jean Twenge, proves that “the tendency towards narcissism in students is up 30 percent in the last thirty-odd years” (2). This proves that teenagers are not enjoying their life because of always trying to be better than everyone else and being someone who they are not. This false characterization of teenagers is a “real self-loathing and hatred of others that lies beneath all this narcissism rises to the surface” (10). Today’s generation grew up with the evolution of technology and social media, this places pressure and stress among teenagers by turning them into someone who they are not and makes them do things they never considered doing. The wanting of acceptance from other people is very important to teenagers and plays a major role distinguishing who they are. Teens today depend on social media to answer all their questions and to express their feeling. When doing so teenagers are often being judged and bullied simply for being themselves. On social media apps like Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter, teens on a daily basis look at other people and label them as “skinny” or “beautiful”;but they don’t think about the “mutual fanning of false love and fame” (4) those people are