A recent survey of 250 adults between 30-45 showed an association between the number of hours adults spend online each day and self reporting of symptoms commonly associated with depression. The survey found that adults who spend 30 hours or more online each week were twice as likely as others to report that they “frequently” had trouble concentrating. Of adults who reported spending more than 30 hours per week online, 20% also reported that they had felt “sad, down or blue” at least three times within last month.
These results suggest that spending too much time online is linked to depression and people who want to improve their well-being should strictly limit the time they spend online.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The following is flawed for numerous reasons. Primarily, It is based on unwarranted assumption that spending too much time online is linked with depression rendering its main conclusion that people who want to improve their well being should strictly limit the time they spend online, invalid. Indeed the conclusion is based on unstated assumptions, that if these assumptions hold untrue, the argument will fall apart.
The argument fails to provide any justification that depression is due to too much time spend online. For one, depression depends upon lot number of factors. It could be there is natural calamity in the country. Or some other family issue, monotonous lifestyle. Stress is major factor for the depression. Procrastination adds to depression. For the argument to be more effective the author should study on causes of depression. What factors internal or external governs the depression.
The argument is based on unwarranted survey of just 250 adults. First, for any study to be credible, sample size should be large. This sample size should represent whole population. The argument mentions nothing about the sex of the people involved in the survey. Also since these adults are spending too much time, as they have some useful work to do. Therefore, the author should rely on more wide statistical data collected over longer period of time.
Furthermore, the argument assumes that more spending of time online let to decrease in the concentration level. The decrease in concentration could be due to improper diet. Wrong and ineffective sleeping hours are the major factors for lack of concentration. Any other physical conditions could also be the cause for ineffective concentration. Therefore, the author should study the diet, sleeping hours and other health issue to find what let to the lack in concentration.
Also, argument needs to study effectively the self reporting symptoms, argument states that they are associated with depression. What kind of symptoms are these. How many people are showing theses symptoms. Since, when are these symptoms visible.
Because the argument makes several unwarranted assumptions it failed to provide any convincing case that depression is due to too much time spend online.
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argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- you told 'sample size should be large', so which size is big enough?
argument 3 -- is duplicated to argument 1
argument 4 -- not OK
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more suggestions:
1. Maybe those people have already had those symptoms before the survey.
2. Their jobs may be related to IT and they have to stay online a long time in the office.
3. the result of survey taken of 250 between 30-45 applies to all the age.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
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