Critical Analysis: 'Making the Young Old before Their Time'

The article ‘Making the Young Old before Their Time’ is written by Paul Robertson. The source of the article is reliable since the article is taken from http://www.cpyu.org/Page.aspx?id=76697 where the author obtained sponsorship to publish his article. The author intends to explain the reasons and solutions on why kids nowadays reach maturity much earlier than before. In his article, Robertson asserts that biological factors, kids’ behavior, and external environment contribute to make the young old before their time.

A large portion of statements in this article is facts where Robertson has made reference to statistics, reports, magazines and books, webpage, and journals. He also expresses his personal experience and opinion on this topic when he mentions “a guidance counselor friend of mine” to bring in concrete examples to make his statements visualizable. With the presence of both facts and opinions, his article appears to be convincing.

His simple language illustrates comparison and contrast about kids’ behavior between generations.

English: In a presentation to students and parents...

English: Norfolk, Va. (Dec. 18, 2003) -- From left...

Jessie Robertson 3

He describes children’s life ‘appears to be stuck on fast forward’ due to several factors. For instance, Robertson states that the media pressurizes kids to behave like older teenagers. However, he shows excessively narrow focus on this topic, as he fails to discuss in detail how actually the media puts pressure on kids instead presents a discussion on the reluctance of parents to talk to their kids about their kids’ concerns.

Robertson also notices that kids are exploited through products consumption in many ways. He seems sarcastic by giving thanks to the music industry in producing songs with messages far beyond kids’ understanding. Throughout his article, there is no evidence of bias in favor of any parties because producers are not accused of accelerating early adolescence, nor the parents. Indeed, he tries to appeal to parents to protect their ‘not-so-innocent’ kids from...