Teen Have Better Behavior Than Their Parents?

Summary
          This article pretty much brings forth the point of how teenagers nowadays have grown to become more conservative than their parents in their teenage years. This generation of teens experiment with alcohol, sex, and illegal drugs far less than their parents did when they were teenagers. Since 1980, teenagers use of alcohol dropped from 72% to 40%. From 1988 to 2010, boys who had had sex went from 50% to 28%, and for girls it went from 37.2% to 27%. In 1981, 43% of teenagers smoked pot, and now today, just 25%. One reason this is so is because there are a lot more ways for parents to monitor their children, such as parental control on TVs and computers, and print-outs of cell phone calls and text messages. There is also teenagers' fear of acquiring HIV and other possible health dangers of sex, alcohol and drugs. However, teens who do decide to become rebellious of their parents have a variety of TV shows that influence their behavior. 

Use of Rhetorical Strategies
          The author, Tara Parker-Pope, utilizes the Aristotelian appeals a great deal in this article. She appeals to ethos more than anything. By citing the sources of her information quite a lot (almost in every paragraph), like the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, Parker-Pope brings more truth to her information. Also, by including examples of TV shows that highly impact the behavior of teenagers today, the author forces readers to think about how teens have access to such influences. Most teenagers are well aware of TV series like "Teen Mom" and "Gossip Girl", as well as most of the world. Such behavior protrayed on those shows are glorified all over the media, giving teens the impression that such actions have good consequences more than bad.

My Opinion
          I couldn't agree with this article more. Hearing stories from my mother's high schools days, and her telling me how this person and that person got pregnant, I realize that teens from back in the days did engage in sexual activities. This also goes for the use of alcohol and drugs. Now, by living in the generation I live in today, I see that there are lot of teens doing the same. Also, I know that there are teens, like myself, who are aware of certain dangers of having sex and using drugs and alcohol. There are also teens like myself, who are too much afraid and reverent of their parents...and God to participate in such activities.