Analysis Of Is Facebook Faking Us Lonely

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In the article “Is Facebook Faking Us Lonely,” author Stephen Marche creates a report on “what the epidemic of loneness is doing to our souls and society.” Marche’s thesis statement is that “new research suggests that we have never been lonelier (or more narcissistic) –and that this loneliness is making us mentally and physically ill” from which he attributes this to social media. Marche’s purpose in writing this article is to persuade readers to think that social media, specifically Facebook, is converting real life relationships to digital unsociable ones, which is causing negative effects to our psyche. The author introduces being alone, something every human craves, is different from loneliness. However, he claims that this digital age …show more content…

Marche first draws in readers using pathos, but his examples of logos throughout the article are the real selling point. After the gruesome story about Yvette, Marche begins to talk about how “we live an accelerating contradiction: the more connected we become, the lonelier we are.” He then introduces the statistics of Facebook, how there are 845 million users and how in 2011, they generated about 2.7 billion likes and comments every day. This supports his claim that we are all “transfixed by the glare of a screen, hungering for a response” and that we are now what is known as the digital era. To create a timeline image he makes “Facebook arrived in the middle” capitalized to emphasize that human loneliness was on a rise. From then on he uses statistics and expert quotes to provide evidence about how slowly people are becoming distant due to isolation. Then Marche introduces how researchers have found that people who spend more time on Facebook are more likely to develop neurotic disorders, depression, or health conditions, such as narcissistic disorder. Overall the development and support of logos provides support to the thesis that overtime the digital era is causing more and more symptoms of

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