A recent survey of 250 adults between the ages of 30 and 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 percent also reported that they had felt “sad, down, or blue” at least three times within the past 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 argument that, people should spend less time online in order to improve their mental health and to be happier in their everyday life may seem reasonable at first glance. However, the evidence provided are mainly based on a survey and, in order to understand whether the thesis is correct, the author has to address some questions to better explain both the conditions in which the pool has been done and the results reached.
First, it is not clear the category of people that have been interviewed. The credibility of the results of a survey depends mostly on this aspect so it has to be clarified before accepting the thesis. As matter of fact, we have to better understand firstly whether these people are living in the same environment, if they have had some health problem lately and other small informations tha could dramtically affect the final results. Suppose, for example, that all the people interviewed are working for the same company and that their working scene is having more and more problems lately. Of course we would not be surprised that a lot of them are depressed and there would not be any relationship between their sadness and their use of the Internet.
In addition, in the short text are not provided any data about the percentage of people who spend online more the 30 minutes. Without having this crucial information it is difficult to evaluate whether the 20 percent of them is a significant number or if it can be just a casual one. We have to ask the author for this percentage because especially in the case it was low, it would not be relevant. In fact, the 20 percent of this quantity, which represents people who are sad and depressed could be just one or two people, that are not enough to support the whole thesis.
Furthermore, the author must be asked to analyze better how many time the 20 percent of the people who have reported to have spent more than 30 hours online have been sad or down. Without having this information it is impossible and premature to talk about depression since it is common to feel bad sometimes and it should not be considered a desease.
In conclusion, even if the argument provided by the author is reasonable to substain, he has to answer to some question in order to provide further supporting evidence. First, he needs to clarifiy the population that has been interviewed in order to make understandable whether the results provided by the survey are general or just related to the population that has been analyzed. In addition he must be asked to provided data about the percentage of people who spend more than 30 hours online since this information would help to make more clear whether depression is a common phenomena or not. To conclude he have to specify the meaning of "at least three time" in order to make more understandable whether the people interviewed are affected by serious depression or just by occasional sadness.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 507 350
No. of Characters: 2365 1500
No. of Different Words: 210 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.745 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.665 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.568 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 169 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 117 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 71 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 29.824 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.073 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.882 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.347 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.573 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.156 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 417, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...nformations tha could dramtically affect the final results. Suppose, for example,...
^^
Line 7, column 61, Rule ID: MANY_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun time seems to be countable; consider using: 'many times'.
Suggestion: many times
...hor must be asked to analyze better how many time the 20 percent of the people who have r...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 387, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[2]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: addition,
...e population that has been analyzed. In addition he must be asked to provided data about...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 581, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[2]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'phenomenon'?
Suggestion: phenomenon
...re clear whether depression is a common phenomena or not. To conclude he have to specify ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 614, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[1]
Message: The pronoun 'he' must be used with a third-person verb: 'has'.
Suggestion: has
...common phenomena or not. To conclude he have to specify the meaning of 'at leas...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, may, so, as to, at least, for example, in addition, in conclusion, in fact, of course
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 34.0 19.6327345309 173% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2428.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 507.0 441.139720559 115% => OK
Chars per words: 4.78895463511 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.74517233601 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6420808559 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 219.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.431952662722 0.468620217663 92% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 775.8 705.55239521 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 12.0 4.22255489022 284% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 29.0 22.8473053892 127% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 44.4423346289 57.8364921388 77% => OK
Chars per sentence: 142.823529412 119.503703932 120% => OK
Words per sentence: 29.8235294118 23.324526521 128% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.47058823529 5.70786347227 131% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.104081352534 0.218282227539 48% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0382103460856 0.0743258471296 51% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0423434165996 0.0701772020484 60% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0660164039429 0.128457276422 51% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0216339315536 0.0628817314937 34% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.0 14.3799401198 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.5 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.09 12.5979740519 88% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.97 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 93.0 98.500998004 94% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.6 11.1389221557 122% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.