Contrasts
The exam question asks you to focus on Leah McLaren’s use of contrasts in “Innocence lost: what did you do before the internet?”. The use of contrasts draws readers’ attention to the changes that the invention of the internet has brought about.
Life before the internet vs. life after the internet
The main contrast in the article is the one McLaren makes between life before the internet and life after the internet. To illustrate her ideas, McLaren relies on a contrast between her own childhood experiences and those of her sons. For example, she shows that her childhood without the internet was typical for the children of her generation. McLaren also writes that her generation enjoyed “empty yawning hours and days of nothing much at all” (ll. 52-53) and “those empty, restless, va...