Reading Response on Orlean

I had a bit of trouble with Orlean's piece on "The American Man at Age Ten". First off, the structure of it sort of threw me and I was wondering where exactly, she was aiming this piece. Was it a magazine profile type of piece or some kind of sociological study wannabe? It felt sort of contrived to me and I wondered if she was trying to make some kind of statement on the socialization of males through video games and candy and if so, what were they exactly? Also, of course all boys are not like this and I know, I certainely was different. She had an immense amount of detail, however, and really knew how to showcase it, though I never understood if she was actually doing anything with it.