Critical Analysis

In an article by Virginia Heffernan, she makes an argument about how headphones are the reason for individuals losing their hearing, especially teenagers. Throughout the article she discusses what the main purpose of what headphones were created for and what we use them for today. Heffernan also discusses the way that we use them today and how it’s dangerous for the future of our hearing throughout her article.

Heffernan addresses adults/parents as her audience because throughout the article she talks to an audience to make them aware of what teens are doing to themselves with headphones. At the end of the article she tells parents that they should not only monitor their kids with the usage of their headphones but also to monitor what they’re listening to because she states that it makes teens antisocial.

Since the main argument is about headphones ruining an individuals hearing, Heffernan gives claims throughout the passage to back up her argument. One of the main claims she gives us is a growing percentage of the amount of teens going deaf since 1994 from a study by The Journal of the American Medical Association. Suddenly, Heffernan begins to shift her topic of teens losing their hearing due to headphones to teens escaping reality with the help of headphones in the second to last paragraph before the end of her article.

Although in part of the article she explains how headphones can be beneficial in our lives, she bases the argument off of the negative side of headphones. Right under her second paragraph, Heffernan makes a statement that shows us that she is going to be talking about the downside of headphones. She tells her audience how the danger of digital culture is not how teens have the attention span of hummingbirds but that they are going deaf.