Dear Ms Samantha Taylor,
I am writing to inform you that I totally disagree with the points on teenagers that Louis CK and Franzen claimed in your article. They claim that teens can’t build reasonable relationships online. In my opinion the older generation is just as bad as teenagers in their use social media:in 2015 two thirds of American adults were found to be using social media compared to 56% of teenagers who report using the internet “several” times a day.

In the first paragraph of your article, Franzen says, ‘I asked a teenager girl, how often do you text?
“About 250 times a day, or something.”‘ He responded ‘Shocking’. Franzen can’t honestly think that this girl texts that much, can you? This certain girl is likely to be exaggerating and it probably feels like she is texting that much but she is most likely not. Most teenagers nowadays use apps like whats app and snapchat to communicate with their friends- these apps have been introduced to allow big groups to communicate with each other instantly.

If this girl is actually telling the truth, not all teenagers are like that. Also he call teenagers “Emoticon-addled zombies”. In my opinion the “Emoticon-addled zombies” are between the ages of 11-13. The main reason I am saying this is because more children are handling more technology than they actually should do for their age. Most people under the age of 13 should be just starting to use Instagram for selfies with their friends. I do agree that companies like Instagram and snapchat should have age limits to sign up, but social media sites like Facebook and twitter are not just used for friends in the same street but for people to socialize overseas with distance friends and family. Sites like these can be helpful for education as well. For example, a student could miss a day of school and they could ask their fellow peers what they did on that day. After finding out what they did, they could revise the subject so they wouldn’t miss any work and they wouldn’t be behind anyone at school.

Also in the first paragraph he says that teens cannot socialise face to face. I totally disagree with this point and I know this from personal experiences and from people talking about their experiences online. I do know that some teenagers have trouble socializing with each other, including me sometimes ; however the majority of teens can socialize wherever and whenever. It can be a struggle talking to someone you have just met, but when I have something in common I talk for the world. To help teens socialise more, Leif K-Brooks created a site called Omegel. This site is a live video allowing people to talk and to chat to others around the world. The site normally averages around 100,000 people logging in every day. Omegle is useful for people who are “Emoticon-addled zombies” because you can adjust your search so you can find people who have the same likes and similar interests to you. This creates good conversation and it makes people much more confident, and it’s literally face to face.

In conclusion, I believe that the people you mentioned are slightly out of touch with how people use social media, though I do agree with some of your piece where you say that teens under a certain age shouldn’t be on their phone non stop. For them to say, however, that all teenagers are all “Emoticon-addled Zombies” is a huge over exaggeration as my personal experience proves to me that only a small number of teens are like this.