English Assignment: Online Behavior Comparison: Parents vs. Child

This essay provides a comparative analysis of the online behaviors of a student and their parents, drawing from personal experiences and the insights gained from Tao Lin's "When I Moved Online." The student reflects on the differing perspectives and usage patterns of the internet and social media across generations. The essay highlights how the parents view the internet as a necessary tool, while the student considers it an essential part of their life. It explores differences in cautiousness, views on sharing online, and preferences in communication methods. The student also discusses the skills they aim to acquire from "The Writer's Handbook," focusing on critical reasoning, persuasion, and argument skills. The essay uses personal anecdotes and references to support its arguments, providing a nuanced view of digital life and its impact on familial relationships.

Running head: ENGLISH ASSIGNMENT
English Assignment
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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After reading “When I moved online” by Tao Lin, I gained a better perspective at
understanding my own and my parents’ online behavior (Lin 2013). Since I have attained a
considerable age, I have been using computer and internet for various purposes. Since the
beginning I have seen extensive use of internet in my house. My father and mother used them
for their jobs and personal use. During my childhood, internet was used to teach me various
topics, these helped me in developing my learning better. I took help from the computers, just
like my parents did in preparing their reports and analysis needed for their work. We would
also use internet for entertainment and relaxations by watching movies and listening to songs.
It was also an important part of communication. Despite that practice, their view and mine
became different as I grew up.
During my adolescent, I became aware of the social media sites. When I joined
Facebook and Instagram, I realized that my parents too were already on it. When they found
out I was on the social media sites, they took time to talk to me about the things that I should
be aware of doing in the social media, how I could ensure my own and the system’s security.
This made me realize that they were quite informed about the technology that they were
using. As I was growing up, better smartphones and internet connections were introduced.
Now, it was possible to connect to the world anytime we wanted.
From the very beginning, I and my parents have learnt about the internet and social
media together. Despite that, our views and understanding of these two had been different.
My parents saw the internet as a necessary evil. A trend that was slowly taking over the world
and one could not reject the use of them. For them, social media was a platform that enabled
them to connect with their friends and acquaintances easily. It enabled them a platform to
search for new opportunity and understand what the young generation were thinking. For me,
the internet was a necessity, something I couldn’t do without. I did my homework, learned

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new things about my study lessons through the internet, it helped me in my project works, it
helped me connect with my friends who went away to different places for different reasons.
There was also some differences how we approached it. My parents were mostly
cautious using the internet shopping sites and social media links. At first I was not that
cautious. I learned through my experience that there are certain negative capabilities of the
internet as well. My parents had earlier warned me against it. I did not give much importance
to it. When I faces internet credit card fraud while shopping from an online shop, I became
more cautious. Another difference that I noticed about the usage of internet and social media
between me and my parents is about our views about sharing our lives online. I follow the
same tradition that my generation does and I religiously follow the internet influencers and
recent trends of sharing the day to day life while my parents only share few photos of special
occasion.
There are also certain minute differences that we use the email. For me email can be
used for both formal and informal uses. I find it perfectly fine to use them when inviting
guests as this gives me an opportunity to invite them cordially with graphical invitations
while saving me the time to visit each and every one of the invitees. My parents disagree in
this matter and prefers to do that in person. While I understand the sentiment of inviting in
person, my busy schedule now and busier schedule that I will have in future will be quite a
barrier in that matter. The people that I am acquainted with also appreciates this practice as
they rarely have the time to attend guests whenever they pleased. There could be many other
psychological differences regarding the use of internet and social media between me and my
parents which could only be understood with future experiences.
The three skills that I want to acquire after reading “The Writer’s Handbook” is my
critical reasoning, persuasion and argument skills. Through critical reasoning, I will be able

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to make informed decision and create better understanding based on fact and logic (Cottrell
2017). Developing persuasion skills will allow me perform better at situations that I will face
later on in my career like, client negotiation and making deals. My argument skills will allow
me to develop critical understanding of issues. Making good arguments require deeper
insights and that is what I want to acquire.

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References
Lin, T., 2013. Opinion | When I Moved Online .... [online] Nytimes.com. Available at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/opinion/sunday/when-i-moved-online.html [Accessed
4 Jan. 2020].
Cottrell, S., 2017. Critical thinking skills: Effective analysis, argument and reflection.
Macmillan International Higher Education.