The deliberation I attended was titled “Who Owns Your Voice?” and covered the moderation of posts on social media sites.  I thought they did an excellent job at giving the backstory to free speech and its limits, including famous court cases like Schneck vs United States.  They also described the moderation policies of social media platforms like Instagram and Youtube which provided us participants with a good base to found our arguments on.  I also enjoyed how they put the definition of deliberation in their issue guide as those who had not taken RCL were most likely unfamiliar with the word.  When we got into the actual approaches, it seemed that one and three were the major favorites as the idea of the government patrolling social media sites seemed unrealistic.  I thought the approach teams did a great job outlining the benefits and downfalls of their approaches and being fair to the other teams.  I feel that sometimes the conversation did slow down quite a bit and they needed more questions to try and spark up more speakers as the conversation seemed to be revolving around a certain few people, an issue my group struggled with.  I was a big advocate for the third approach and mainly argued that there was no way for either companies or the government to silence every bad comment and that people can always find loopholes in their systems.  I believed the best solution is to let these apps run on their own and give users, people who will be affected by these harmful comments, the ability to report them themselves.  In the end, the community is the most integral part of any social media service and the decisions should be left to them.  Someone who argued for approach one did make a good point about how many times people are too apathetic to report these negative comments and they can end up hurting the people who do care.  I saw their point of view that people should be able to feel safe online without having to worry about being bullied or harassed, even for a short while before the comment is reported.  This made me more sympathetic to the idea of company regulation, but in the end I left sticking to the idea that the best system is one that is left to run by its own laws.

For our advocacy project, we will be trying to combat mental illness and lack of productivity in Penn State students due to frequent phone use.  We believe, based on new medical research being released as well as personal experience, that college students have the poor habit of spending hours a day on their phone.  We believe these hours could be better spent with more productive and rewarding activities like studying, exercise, or any activity more enjoyable then scrolling through a phone.  This is why we have taken the approach of encouraging students to set limits on their screen time using a recently introduced smartphone feature.  We know that appealing to students through the idea of increasing productivity and making them realize how much time they save will be effective.  However, we want our whole campaign to be backed on the idea of preserving the mental health of the younger generations, so I believe it will be a good idea to partner with Aevidum.  Aevidum is an education based mental health awareness campaign that encourages students from elementary school all the way to college to have each other’s back and lend an ear.  They have the goal of raising awareness within school communities for diseases that aren’t often talked about and they want to prevent as many of these cases as possible.  Since our advocacy project has the same central goals, I believe it would be beneficial to partner with them.  We could provide them with a new focus in trying to protect young kids and teens from the harmful effects of social media, and they could successfully spread our message over 150 schools across the country and raise awareness in the young population.  I believe the symphony of our idea with the popularity and strong message delivered by Aevidium will be a mutually beneficial partnership.

Our advocacy project tackled the sensitive but protruding issue of debilitating social media and overall phone usage time in the Penn State population. After doing significant research for my own benefit as well as my issue brief, I noticed a relationship between the increased phone time spent by our generation and rising rates of mental illness like generalized anxiety and depression in millennials and generation Z.  Mental health is something that has significantly affected both of us throughout our lives, and we wanted to do all we could to stop this increasing trend and preserve the happiness of the upcoming and current college generations.  We quickly became passionate about making a change.

Although we first thought about using government as a means of implementing change, we quickly realized that we could make a much swifter and significant impact by simply presenting our peers with undeniable facts which would cause them to self-reflect and make the changes in their own lives by using tools already at their disposal. Brainstorming solutions was difficult because phones have become an absolute necessity in our society today, and no one would find it reasonable to completely give them up or disconnect from most social media. This meant that villainizing social media or bluntly asking students to delete their social media were not realistic options.

 We ourselves struggle with wasting precious time on social media and we needed to relate to other students by giving them a more moderate option. This led us to Apple’s newly added screen time feature. This setting, recently introduced by Apple, gives users the ability to set a limit on the amount of time they can spend on a specific category of apps like social media or entertainment. After some brief research, we found that Android also offered a similar feature in their phones. Our goal now was to make students aware of this feature and give them a reason to limit their time every day.

Mental Health In Adolescents: Is Social Media To Blame

Exordium-

Mental Health diseases have been hitting our country hard the past few decades, but no age group has been affected more severely then Teens.  According to a study done by Johns Hopkins, “The odds of adolescents suffering from clinical depression grew by 37 percent between 2005 and 2014”.  Not only are teens in the most emotionally susceptible age period while going through puberty and experiencing hormone changes, they are also constantly battling for popularity and trying to find an identity among their peers.

Narrative/Exigence-

The statistics concerning mental health diseases like depression, anxiety, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder are rising at a concerning rate within our community as a whole.  The National Institute of Mental Health found that today “approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S, or 18.5%, experience mental illness in a given year”.  The number of visits to a physicians office for mental health has increased from 59.8 million in 2015 to 66.7 million in only two years.  These statistics are even more frightening in the younger generations. The following graph illustrates the increase in the use of psychotropic drugs for treating depression in girls ages 1-17 over the years 2004 to 2014.  There is a clear and frightening rise every year and always a constant spike in use during the teen years.   

These statistics have had even more alarming results.  The suicide rate over the last 13 years has been rising steadily as shown in the graph. Something needs to be done to slow this progression because our society cannot be complacent with such a high rate of suicide in our young generation.

Mental Health is a complex issue and can be brought about by any number of events in a young person’s life. The theory of many is simply that doctors have begun to better understand and diagnose mental illness in teens as science and the practice of psychology have advanced rapidly in the past decade.  Other blame the rise on the increased competitiveness in academics and sports in high school, but the cause with the most evidence and the biggest impact on teen culture as a whole is social media.

-Define the various problems and statistics connecting social media and poor mental

-Studies by Jean Twenge

Thesis:

The rapid change in teen culture and hyperconnectivity provided by their early exposure to social media has become the major factor in the shift towards their high and increasing rates of mental illness and suicide.

Partition:

My central idea would be increased public education to children and parents about the possible negative effects of social media exposure at a young age.  It would essentially be the new MyPlate but concerning social media screen time and providing this information to parents as well.  It will describe the possible negative health effects to parents, but still allow them to make their own decisions on how early they want to give children access.

Notes:

Public health awareness campaign- My Plate

First Major point is an elaboration on the problem w/ graphs and statistics

Second- Public campaign analogy to my plate

Third- How this will work and why it will, parents have children’s health as mental health, other campaigns that have worked, experts that say it will work

The first idea I have considered for my This I believe podcast is telling my story of when I almost drowned back in the summer before 7th grade.  We had a game between our families siblings to see who could swim back and forth the most times in our pool without breathing.  One July day I was set on breaking the record so I made attempt after attempt at the elusive four laps, a record set by my sister.  After about two hours of laps, I was ready to give up.  I decided to hyperventilate for two minutes to saturate my body with oxygen and then make one more attempt.  This apparently was the perfect combination for passing out because after 3 and a half laps I floated to the bottom, my face pale. The message I would conclude with is that life is delicate as, before this incident, death seemed to be so far away in my mind.  Only until I realized that my life could have easily ended if my brother took another 30 seconds to pull me out of the water.

The second idea I had for my this I believe was that everyone has to find a specific thing to become their main source of confidence.  Even when I was young I was fairly well rounded, I was somewhat athletic, playing basketball and lacrosse, fairly smart among my peers, and decently well liked by everyone.  The problem was I was so average in everything that I never really found an identity with any particular group.  I became insecure about myself and had difficulty finding friends.  In high school, I started weightlifting for the first time and, as cliche as it sounds, everything began to change for me.  I found the identity that I never had before in the weight room.  As my body began to change for the better, my confidence grew equally.  I became dedicated to the gym as it gave me an identity and provided me with a source of confidence that I desperately needed.  With this confidence, I was able to start coming out of my shell and it has shaped the person I am today.

I am fairly decided on the topic for my civic issues blog.  I want to discuss and give my opinion on the effect of social media on the confidence and mental health of our generation.  This is a topic I am fairly passionate about as many people close to me have struggled with mental health problems including my girlfriend and my sister.  I was very curious about why these problems have become so apparent and common in our generation and younger generations.  I would like to discuss the idea that social media has a significant and direct impact on the mental health of younger people.  I will discuss points proving this idea as well as other possible sources of the mental health crisis.  I am fairly set on this idea and am excited about exploring it further.

I personally believe that in his speech, Gavin McInnes successfully uses rhetoric to portray the Proud Boys as victims to an intolerant left.  Even the Proud Boys organization as a whole, through action and speech, are able to provoke Antifa and other leftist groups to act out against them in an attempt to prove the Proud Boys’ point that the left is not as tolerant as they claim.  They are able to do this through ethos and the commonplace that the first one to throw a punch is the one who started the fight.

Although both Gavin McInnes and the Proud Boys organization does not exactly have a credible position in our classes eyes, they attempt to keep their image high to those reading their website by publicly denouncing racism and not directly condoning sexism.  They possess plausible deniability as no matter how racist or sexist of an act they are seen performing, they can always refer back to their website which states they denounce these two ideas.  Also, Gavin McInnes was formerly a comedian which gives him the ethos that some of what he can say will be dismissed as sarcasm in the attempt of getting a laugh.  This combined with his humorous tone and the laughing of the crowd throughout his speech give him further deniability as he has the ability to declare any offensive statement a joke.  Lastly, although the Proud Boys strongly further themselves from the alt-right, many Proud Boys were present at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.  In order to maintain their anti-racism profile, the Proud Boys quickly excommunicated these members. The Proud Boys keep the ethos of anti-racist and anti-sexist in their speech, even though their actions speak differently.

The proud boys also use the commonplace that the one who threw the first punch started the fight.  This can be seen at their rally at New York Univerisity, a well-known liberal university.  They went through the front entrance, through protesters, and sang their chants, most likely to instigate violence.  This led to a fight between proud boys and the protestors in which the proud boys came out on top.  McInnes bragged about this win and was able to blame the fight on the Antifa because the first punch was not thrown by a proud boy.  In this way, Gavin McInnes is able to use this commonplace to cast blame on the left and call them intolerant.

Gavin McInnes and the Proud Boys organization very cleverly uses the rhetoric of ethos and the commonplace that a fight is started by the first punch to give themselves plausible deniability and portray the left as villains.

An interesting topic I have found a paradigm shift is the progression of obesity in America.  In 2018, the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 32.2% of men were obese and the number was 35.5% for women.  In 1990 this number was only around 10% for both, it has been continually increasing every year.  Also, the national childhood obesity rate is currently 18.5%.  The root of obesity stems from two causes, the decrease in exercise throughout our culture, and the increase in unhealthy eating habits.  Many people believe the government needs to take action to stop this epidemic which can involve better nutrition labels and taxes on unhealthy food.  Others still hold the opinion that obese people are at fault for their own issue.  My opinion lies somewhere between both of these, that although most obese people do not put in the effort to stay active, the increase in unhealthy foods throughout our society is also to blame.

The first point I would like to discuss is the shift from America being an active society to only about 40% of adults being active on a regular basis.  Although the blame can be put on our laziness as a society, we must find out what causes this laziness.  First of all, the increase in motorized travel reduced walking everywhere which obviously was detrimental to the amount of activity Americans got every day.  A more modern cause would be the increase in home entertainment, be it movies, the”golden age” of television, or video games.  With all of these entertainment options available, going to the gym or out for a run seem like very bland choices.  Now, people not only have to motivate themselves to go exercise, but they also have to put down their phones and turn off their favorite TV show just to go do something less fun which requires more effort.  The choice becomes easy for people to stay at home and relax with a movie after a long day at work rather than getting back in their car to go sweat for an hour.  With the increase in home-based entertainment in today’s culture, people have much less will and incentive to go out an exercise.

The other part to the rise in American obesity is simply overeating and eating unhealthy foods.  Natural foods such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and high-quality meats are beginning to be entirely replaced by processed foods with more saturated fat, sugar, calories, and preservatives.  And what caused the rise of these foods when America is perfectly capable of producing enough natural foods to satisfy our population? The ease of ordering food.  Making food requires one to make frequent trips to the grocery store to buy fresh food, preparing it, and then cleaning up after.  Compare this whole process to simply ordering a pizza which is delivered right to your front door with no work.  Although America is beginning to see better options, most delivery foods are very fatty and unhealthy.  Also, people have the ability to order food online directly to their house.  This food travels for a while so it must be heavily processed and loaded with preservatives in order to be sustainable for long enough. McDonald’s, Dominoes, and Amazon are all culprits of making Americans lazy when it comes to food preparation.  The combination of an increase in calorically dense, unhealthy food and the ease of access to it through home delivery food services has led to the rise of obesity in America.

A civic artifact I am considering analyzing related to President Bush’s 9/11 speech is President Barack Obama’s televised address to the American Public after the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. This speech is seamlessly related to my last civic artifact as George Bush stated: “I have directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice”.  Thanks to the counterterrorism work of President Obama, the CIA, and those brave members of Seal Team Six who traveled to Pakistan, the leader of Al-Queada was killed.  Late on the night of May 11th, 2011, nearly ten years after the day, President Obama came onto every TV set in America for a surprise address.  To the relief of all Americans and especially those directly affected by the terrorist attack, the President reported: “the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden”.

The assassination of Bin Laden is very intriguing because it created a tremendous wave of patriotism and was referred to by many as one of the biggest accomplishments of Obama’s presidency.  Many people did not realize the assassination of Bin Laden served a more symbolic purpose then it did in actually ending terrorism in the United States.  Al-Qaeda was still at large in Afghanistan and they were likely to retaliate against America for the death of their leader.  This poses two questions: Why was this speech received so well by the people in the United States, and how did President Obama’s speech make people feel as if with the death of Bin Laden came the end of terrorism and the start of a hopeful beginning?  It is with the effective use of rhetoric, President Obama is able to use the assassination of Osama bin Laden to console people whos loved ones were killed in 9/11, and create a new sense of hope throughout the nation.

The most impactful rhetorical devices used in this speech appear to be kairos, pathos, and logos.  The use of kairos is clear in that President Obama uses the successful assassination of the man responsible for 9/11 to give his speech more merit.  With a wave of national pride and strong emotions that followed the news of Bin Laden’s death, there was a perfect window of opportunity to make a lasting impact on the American people through a passionate speech.  There is a clear use of pathos in this speech as well which can be seen in lines like “the images of 9/11 are seared into our national memory” and “nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts”.  These are just a few examples of the chilling emotional language used by President Obama in his speech.  Lastly, the President uses logos in his speech, especially when detailing the steps taken by the CIA, military, and himself in organizing this assassination.  He describes the hard work done by all involved and their efforts in fighting other sources of terrorism. These factual statements apply to peoples logic, giving them undeniable proof that they should not fear terrorism the way they have in the past.  With the combination of these three rhetorical approaches, President Obama is able to make a convincing argument that the age of terrorism is coming to an end.

Good Evening,

Today my fellow classmates, the time has come to analyze the speech that launched a never-before-seen sense of nationalism in the United States.

September 11, 2001, was undoubtedly the most horrific day in modern American History.  Four commercial flights were hijacked by an Islamic terrorist group known as Al-Queda and crashed into both towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and thanks to a rebellion by the passengers, the fourth flight towards Washington D.C fell in a field in Pennsylvania.  Not only did this attack lead to 3,000 deaths and over 6,000 injuries, it was the single most lethal event in United States history for first responders.  With the collision of the planes came the collapse of both Twin towers, the west side of the Pentagon, and the hope of American citizens.  The American public had reached a new low and they needed a spark to change their sadness to spirit and their hopelessness to strength.  This critical moment is when President George Bush took the stage to deliver a passionate speech.  Through his effective use of kairos and his compelling ethos, President Bush is able to set the tone for the rebuilding of the country.

Undeniably, the exigence of President Bush’s speech was the most impactful of all the rhetorical devices used in his speech.  New York City residents watched in horror as the Twin Towers collapsed in heaps of rubble and smoke.  Videos of crashing planes and burning buildings shown on the news were interrupted by the face of President Bush.  He addressed the confused and hopeless citizens reassuring them that “Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America”.  President Bush started his speech with powerful statements meant to unite the American people and build up a sense of strength to stop peoples hopes from falling in a nation that was already crumbling.  After building this strong emotional base he attempts to further soothe the distraught American public by describing to them how the cleanup and rebuilding efforts would be handled and insisting the government would remain strong “without interruption”.  These statements by President Bush really resonated with American Citizens because they were at their lowest and they needed a strong, determined government to rely on.  President Bush was able to capitalize on this window of opportunity by telling Americans what they needed to hear.

Another example of President Bush’s effective use of rhetoric in his speech is his command of ethos.  As the President of the United States, George Bush was already viewed by many as a strong, capable leader who they could put their faith in.  His position of power provides him with an implicit credibility before his speech even begins.  With his credibility as a leader, he calms the country.  He describes the countries emergency response plan and how it will proceed, he confirms that the military is powerful and prepared to deal with future threats, and he reassures investors that the economy will remain strong and “open for business”. Even though his validity has already been established, President Bush takes further advantage of ethos by essentially creating another persona for himself.  By frequently using first person language such as our, we, and us, President Bush gives his speech a personal feel as if he is speaking to every American as an equal.  He makes the audience feel as though they can relate to him and his words can be trusted.  It is the combination of his ethos as a leader who the people can have faith in to keep the country strong, and an ordinary man who they can relate to that gives President Bush’s word so much merit and impact.

President Bush picked the opportune moment to give his speech.  In the wake of the deadliest terrorist attack in American history, the people needed a strong guiding voice to reassure them, and with his strong credibility as a leader and a friend, President Bush was able to comfort the masses.  The rhetorical effect of this speech went further than just lifting a nation’s hopes, it creates a sense of nationalism that spread from New York City to the entire country and still lives on seventeen years later. Everyone should care about this speech and more importantly its impact as 9/11 will always be remembered in our country so we must also remember how the nation was able to come together and rebuild.  It is also important to know what made President Bush’s speech so impactful as with the effective use of rhetoric he was able to take the sadness and hopelessness that follows a horrific event and change it into the birth of nationalism in the United States.

Today I will be discussing the appeals to rhetoric President Bush makes in his post 9/11 speech to the American public.  In the wake of the most deadly, horrific terrorist attack in American History, the American people were confused, distraught, and hopeless.  With his successful use of kairos, ethos, and pathos, President Bush is able to console the American public all while inspiring them with a passionate sense of nationalism.

The timing on President Bush’s speech could not have been more opportune and impactful.  America was at a new found low after watching four planes and all their passengers go down.  New York City residents watched in horror as the Twin Towers collapsed in heaps of rubble and smoke.  The videos of crashing planes and burning buildings being shown on the news were interrupted by President Bush.  He addressed the confused and hopeless citizens reassuring them that “Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America”.  He explained to them how America would deal with the aftermath of the attacks and that the government would remain strong “without interruption”.  President Bush’s precise use of kairos allowed his speech to have the maximum amount of impact as the shaky American people were in desperate need of a strong, reassuring voice to help them rise from the ashes.

The American people responded to the words of President Bush so well because of his powerful ethos.  Having the title and position as President of the United States, George Bush already carried a strong credibility.  Throughout his speech, he further builds his ethos by using words such as our, we, and us.  In this sense, he has built two personas through ethos.  On one hand, he is the leader of his people and will remain strong to protect them, but on the other, he is just another American citizen who can relate to his people.  With these two images, he is successfully able to gain the trust of his audience so his words carry much more merit and impact.   He unites the American people as a country who must stay strong and undivided in the face of adversity.

The main rhetorical goal of President Bush’s speech is not necessarily one of persuasion, but more so one of inspiration.  Although he attempts to convince the American public to stay calm and trust their government, he also uses pathos to try and inspire them to unite as a country and remain strong under their flag.  President Bush begins his speech by stating that “[today] our way of life, our very freedom came under attack”.   He asks the American people for prayers and condolences and quotes a bible verse at the end of his speech.  His emotional words appeal to the hearts and feelings of the public.  This goal to inspire nationalism was very successful as after the 9/11 attacks, every house had a flag and the country reached a level of pride it had never seen before.