Dan Hawk
Composition 2 - EN 1420
3/20/2013

The Digital Age
In this Visual Argument assignment I wanted to find an image that was an extreme example of our involvement in technology in the family nucleus. I could not find one that I felt summed the issue so I made my own. Searching for a smart, sensitive, and effective strategy for coping with the dilemmas of digital life with children I produced this image of my family in two extreme situations. Interestingly the setting in front of the television was the easiest to set up for seeing as they had their devices already with them. Media in a modern family has changed the way we interact. One example is my wife and I will sometimes text each other even when in the same house. A reason for this is occasionally to keep the information from the kids, but sometimes it is just sheerer laziness.
The background information that a person needs to understand this image is that Ninety-five percent of American kids have Internet access by age 11 and the average number of texts a teenager sends each month is well over 3,000. More families report that technology makes life with children more challenging, not less, as parents today struggle with questions previous generations never faced. Most parents experience anxiety about how to manage new technology with their kids. With the understanding of a parent of teens and the rigor of an artist I contrasted this picture to emphasize the difference of a past age, before the technological revolution and today’s information oppression in our current society. Sometimes technology changes too rapidly for parents to keep up with their kids, especially when the overseers are faced with the same distractions in the cyber world as their children.
Key details I made to stand out were the difference in the ages by using an old distressed black and white photo contrasting with a new type of photography in which the background is undistinguishable and the faces are highlighted on the concentration of each person on their monitor. The text I chose was I modern font with a drop shadow to complement the blues in the screens denoting the unit as well as