Chronically Online, Kyle Van Zeumeren………………………………………………………62 Cliffhanger, Jessalyn Shein

Chronically Online

Kyle Van Zeumeren

The internet is becoming more and more an integral part of the lives of adolescents. Huge parts of their social interaction comes from social media and other online interactions. While the ‘normal’ amount of time spent online continues to increase, there is a category beyond the normal amounts: chronically online. The term chronically online is often used interchangeably with the slightly more favourable term ‘Extremely Online’ or the even less favourable term ‘Terminally Online’. These terms all tend to refer to people who spend a huge portion of their time online, and care a significant amount about the things that happen online. They need to be up to date on the latest trends and happenings particularly involved with internet culture. This includes a huge amount of slang and language to the point of moving towards a new dialect. These dialects can be localized to different sub categories of online people, not all chronically online people speak the same dialect. People who are chronically online typically sacrifice social interaction ‘in real life’ (IRL) in order to continue to cultivate their online experience. Chronically online people tend to also not care about anything other than their internet life (Urban Dictionary, 2021). They often lose touch with the outside world, learning a dialogue of language that does not otherwise spill into the rest of the world. There is irony in the use of the term as it is mostly used by younger people, who themselves could be seen as chronically online to older outsiders (Al-Heeti, 2021). A lot of the documentation of Chronically Online people is made by other heavy or frequent users of platforms such as Tiktok. Chronically online people are often criticized for not understanding the real world, or what real life is like. These criticisms are sometimes ironic in themselves, as they show a lack of willingness on the part of the criticizer to try to understand the experiences of youth.

Being Chronically Online is important for the study of adolescence because it is primarily a ‘condition’ faced by adolescents. It is important to understand why adolescents spend so much time online. Can they create a life online that they can not offline? Is it because they have more freedom to express themselves, their thoughts, opinions and feelings? Examining the reasons behind the potentially harmful levels of use described by the phrase can help to understand the struggles of modern day adolescents.

Work Cited

Definition: Cheesed. Urban Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved November 6, 2022, from https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cheesed Dekin, S. (2021, May 26). Why teenages need to start discussing their emotions. Mission Harbor Behavioral Health. Retrieved November 6, 2022, from https://sbtreatment.com/blog/teenagers-discussing-emotions/

Cliffhanger

Jessalyn Shein

‘Cliffhanger’ is a word that is important to the study of adolescence, even though it is technically a literary device, because the word encapsulates the inner turmoil of the adolescent experience. The word cliffhanger has many different definitions, some within its use as a literary device and some as a phrase in itself. ‘Cliffhanger’ can mean a suspenseful movie, a show where each installment ends in suspense, a suspenseful ending itself, a situation where the outcome is uncertain up to the very end, a situation of imminent disaster, a situation that is dramatic or uncertain. For my keyword choice I considered using ‘uncertainty’ or ‘suspenseful’ but I thought that ‘cliffhanger’ was more specific to convey the adolescent experience. The history of the term ‘cliffhanger’ is quite interesting. A cliffhanger is a plot device in fictional stories where the protagonist is confronted with a dilemma of some kind and is used to entice the watcher/reader to return to the story to find out what happens next. Though the term was not coined until the 1930’s, it has been used in stories since the middle ages. The term ‘cliffhanger’ can help us understand the experiences of young people because it allows us to consider adolescent’s as the protagonists of their own stories. As future educators we need to consider all the possible suspenseful situations, the different dilemmas and the multitude of uncertainties that youth face. All of these daunting situations that young people face, no matter how trivial they may seem to adults at face value, may be the biggest cliffhanger of their entire young life. Another way that the term ‘cliffhanger’ helps us understand the experience of young people is by pointing our attention to representations of youth within different media. Stories of youth in the news, stories of fictional youth within tv shows or those within books, the list goes on. One prominent feature of all these stories is the presence of cliffhangers, whether or not the resolution of the cliffhanger had yet to come about. For example, seeing a young person in the news could mean they won an award, in this instance the teen may have experienced their cliffhanger as they poured their heart and soul into their work, hoping that they would win said award. In another news example, a young person may have passed away after struggling for years with mental health. All stories of youth within any media seem to embody the cliffhanger trope. The term ‘cliffhanger’ relates to youth’s health and well-being for the same reasons. When watching a show that uses a cliffhanger as a literary device, the viewer feels the intensity of the situation and the emotions of the protagonist. Youth are constantly struggling and trying to find resolution to the cliffhangers in their lives, as educators we can learn from this terms use within literary media and apply the same lens to the complex lives of our students.

Work Cited

Definition: Cheesed. Urban Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved November 6, 2022, from https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cheesed