"Teenagers Brain"

 The New Yorker, a prestigious American Weekly Magazine features journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, and poetry. It is aimed to reach a sizable audience of middle to upper-class readers with big aspirations. Furthermore is primarily directed towards a sophisticated, well-educated, liberal audience. One of The New Yorkers composers, Bob Staake, created a cover piece called, "Teenagers Brain.” His piece seems to be about the “normal” thoughts of a teenage boy on his walk to school, but could also be about how technology, in general, is taking over the youth of society. It may also be about how technology is taking priority over education and how technology is the driving factor for the underperformance in school and the increased laziness for adolescence.

After Analyzing this piece in great detail many conclusions arise. The cover is dated September 4th, 2006 and the picture shows a boy presumably walking to school. One can assume that the boy is walking to school by some small details. First off the side of the cover is replicating the side of a composition notebook, with the black and white marble spiral. Moreover, the boy has a red book in his left hand and a backpack over his shoulder. The idea of school comes to mind when looking at this piece. The boy's eyes are fully shut and we can see that he has many thoughts in his mind, represented by the various colored bubbles. Predominantly the boys' thoughts are focused on internet-based platforms or other forms of technology. Myspace, an iPod, PS3, YouTube, Counter-Strike, and Family Guy compose his main thoughts. The video iPod and YouTube both came out in the late year of 2005 and the PlayStation 3 came out in 2006. These sorts of platforms and devices became relevant around the date of Staake’s cover and provided a large significance to this piece.

One of the main takeaways from Staake’s cover is the growing concern that adolescents are growing up in a society where technology and the internet are predominantly focused on rather than education. This is something that has become a growing concern from 2oo6 to 2021. The young boy's main thoughts are the newest and most popular forms of technology. The irony of this is that the boy is on his way to school but his mind isn't focused on school at all; only a small part is “thinking” about algebra. This is the only bubble that is not colored in, in his brain. Leaving this bubble uncolored was intentionally done to further advance the idea of school being viewed as insignificant to many adolescents. 

The body language of the boy is also alarming to the viewer. We can see that the boy is hunched over and his eyes are tightly closed. It appears that he is trying to escape the reality of his life. Also by the way the city background is left as grayscale with very little color, indicates this distancing from reality. Most of his thoughts are fiction or not relevant to his current life. Youtube, Family Guy, Myspace, Counter-Strike are all things that help him escape. What the boy fails to think about is life. Things like family, friends, school, are just a few of the important things that his life may consist of. 

Staake’s cover piece allows the reader to explore the many possibilities that this cover could mean. The way the boy carries himself and the way that Staake designed this cover, shows the audience that the boy, symbolizing a given teenager, needs to escape reality to be happy. Staake’s piece may be a call for change. It could be a call to make society a place where we prioritize education rather than social media or it could be a call to check in with people even when they seem to be colorful.