Rationale: 

The topic of my two genres is whether or not parents should be monitoring their child’s internet use. My audience for the topic is first-time parents. If it’s their first time having a child they’ll certainly be asking themselves a few things about how they should raise their child. Should they be more lenient, strict and so much more. I’m sure it’s a lot for them to even grasp the idea of raising a child for the first time. Within the past decade or so, technology has risen to some new heights. Almost everyone nowadays has a smartphone on them 24/7 and some sort of social media. Which left children wanting these as well. Maybe a decade ago we would have never thought of giving a child a mobile device, however in today’s day and age it’s become a much more common idea. I’ve seen it happen in my own family, where my cousins get their cell phones at a much younger age than when I got one. Having a smartphone can open you to so many new possibilities. Whether that be complete access to anything you want to search, to having social media, texting, phone calls and so much more. More often than not, parents begin to worry about what exactly their child is doing on their device. They may begin to restrict their children’s phone use, block websites and so much more. So, I thought it’d be rather helpful for parents, as someone who did grow up with smartphones and social media, as to how they should approach their child about using their devices. I came to the conclusion of how they shouldn’t be monitoring everything their child does. It can lead to many trust issues between the parent and child. So there were a few genres I thought would work for my audience. A documentary sounded interesting as it would dive deep into the issue and show the effects of monitoring and vice versa. Another was a poster, a poster can be a quick and efficient way to reach a mass audience if you post them in the right areas. Possibly schools, parks and other places where parents would be with their child. Another genre would’ve been a YouTube video. YouTube has become a primary learning tool for many, so I thought it’d be great to be able to get the information shared with many more people and dive deep into the topic. However, the two genres I landed on were social media posts and news articles. 

I believed a social media post would be a great avenue, as I’m sure many first-time parents now are millennials, which are typically the majority of a user base for social media. More particular, Instagram. Sharing on Instagram has become easier and easier. You have the option of sending a post via a link or even directly on the app itself. There’s even the option of sharing it through your Instagram post. If a celebrity or public figure has a close following and were to share a post on their story, the post can easily gain a following and reach even more people than a YouTube video or a poster would. When it came to creating the post itself, I followed the page CHNGE, they do these posts called carousel posts. Where their first image is a title page, with big/bold letters of what the post is about. As you swipe left to the next image, the two are usually connected in some way, and more information gets revealed as you keep swiping. The main reason why I choose this type of post is it would be able to get a lot more information on the post 

 I’m sure I can speak for everyone when We’ve had a question ourselves and we decided to type it into google. More likely than not we would often choose a news article to be the most trustworthy. Unlike social media posts, news articles are able to dive deeply into any topic. They provide a much more credible source and can even reach a wider range of audiences. Any older parents are more likely to read a newspaper than see an Instagram post. News Articles are a much more formal way to deliver information and can be as long as they want to be. 

Reflection: 

Doing the inquiry-based essay was a much more time-consuming process. Coming up with the question to ask, then finding sources related to and against your point. Especially since the topic, I’ve chosen isn’t being talked about as much as it probably should be. The idea of monitoring your child and their internet use is fairly new. It wasn’t a thing over a decade ago. Yet it’s starting to become much more prevalent. The issue with my topic was certainly finding the audience. So many people can fit into it. Whether it be older parents who don’t know technology or parents who have a teen and don’t necessarily know how to get through the awkward stage with them. Many parents like to baby their teens, whether that be watching their every move or even keeping them at home 24/7. I landed on first-time parents. Since smartphones are becoming available for children at a younger age than ever before. I felt as if first-time parents would be the sweet spot for my genres. Most of the first-time parents today are most likely millennials. Which is typically the most common age group throughout social media. They’d be the perfect audience for a social media post. They have a grasp of how technology is, however they may not necessarily know how to raise their child with it, which is okay. Coming up with the genres to write within was easy as long as I knew my audience. Compared to the research essay, which I found to be struggling with, every now and then. The genres felt like I could write a little less formal, especially since it’s me trying to personally connect with the reader. The whole point of my writing was so they’d know how it was for someone who groups in a time where technology has become much more prevalent day by day. Unlike the research essay where I felt like I had to stick to a script and write really formally, an Instagram post can be slightly more quirky. There’s a level of fun you can have, whether it comes to the colors, the font, and the way you write the post. The idea is to get someone’s attention quickly as possible with a social media post. Get as many likes and clicks. The news article was an obvious genre from the start for me as it’d allow me to get much more in-depth about the topic. It was written a bit more formal than the social media post but not so much so I didn’t lose that personal connection. The news article can also allow me to reach an older audience than the social media post. My stance on the topic is different than the majority of the sources that I had been finding. Lots of the sources that had been coming up were usually giving parents ideas on how to monitor their child. Rather than discussing if you should or shouldn’t. Just because you’re a parent doesn’t mean you should know absolutely everything your child does.