“Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected,” Mark Zuckerberg writes in one of his monthly Facebook posts (Zuckerberg). “We believe the better you can share and connect, the more progress society will make. Relationships grow stronger, more jobs and businesses are created and governments better reflect people’s values.” Clearly, Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, believes that Facebook is the tool to empower people to make their voices heard and to achieve global well-being through the global internet connection. But is it that simple? In a scholarly study titled “Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults”, Ethan Kross concludes: “Rather than enhancing …show more content…
In her essay “Generation Why?”, Zadie Smith writes “the quality of that connection, the quality of information that passes through it, the quality of the relationship that connection permits-none of this is important [on Facebook]” (650). On Facebook, we can send friend requests to everyone from strangers to close friends. When we are trying to share tribulations with those strangers, they would not show much concern or support because they are the outsider of our life; hence, resulted in a lousy quality of social connection. In reviewing on The Social Network film in her essay, Smith says “500 million sentient people entrapped in the recent careless thoughts of a Harvard sophomore” (657). She borrows from Lanier in “You Are Not A Gadget” that living within Zuckerberg’s “virtual mansion” (645) make people “reduce themselves…to make a computer’s description of them appear more accurate” (652). People are friending based on the “information [which] underrepresents reality” (653) in Facebook, which “explicitly encourages people to make weak, superficial connections with each other” (650). “Is Facebook providing an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection” (721), as Kross …show more content…
Eula Bliss’s article “Time and Distance Overcome” in The Iowa Review implies that the functions of the technological tool depend on the user: to be beneficial or harmful. Specifically, Bliss discusses the invention of the telephone, which was meant to allow the deaf to hear (537); however, Bliss discovered that in American history, people used the telephone poles as execution devices to lynch African Americans. She provides a terrible list: dead body was strung up on a telephone pole (539), black man was hanged from a telephone pole (539), the bodies of the men lynched from telephone poles (541). But Bliss acknowledges that the poles, of course, were not to blame (540). Then, who should be blamed for the race riots and the tragic deaths of African Americans? Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of telephones? The
The audience can empathize easily with Sue and the death of her youngest and this allows the audience to understand the usefulness of Facebook “friends”; however, Dailey’s shift to present the other side of the argument with Bugeja’s forward truth of the flaws in online social networks. Bugeja convinces the reader that reality provides a more intimate level of support that the virtual world can never offer. Dailey could have ended the article on a stronger note that Facebook “friends” only serves as an additive to friendships to reality. In reference to Henry Adams infamous quote, Facebook “friends” cannot be made but built from existing
As technology progress, humans evolve to the advanced technology and enhance our lives via technology. We connect to our families, friends and others through social media such as Facebook. Social media takes up a huge part in our lives. Social media infest us with information that are relevant and irrelevant to us. Marry Marrow wrote, “It was Facebook that changed the face of e-communication; in fact, it was the first electronic social media” (para 1). She assumes that Facebook is playing a huge role in electronic communication. In the journalist Maria Konnikova, “How Facebook makes us unhappy?”, Konnikova divulges many aspects of people on social media through researching and experience, and finds how social makes us unhappy. I agree with Konnikova findings after reading her article. In addition, she concludes that if you are engaged, active, and creative you will not sorrowful on Social media, however if you are passively browsing and defuse to engage, you
However, as far as I am concerned, the above authors fail to mention the positive effects Facebook has on our lives. Facebook is also very useful. It enables us to keep in touch with friends and family all around the world. A modern journalist, Adam Piore in his article, “What Technology Can’t Change About Happiness,” also argues that “The overall effect of technology is to overcome the constraints of time and location that would have proven insurmountable before” (Piore 9). Piore’s purpose here is to tell people that technology can be a good thing as well. I also believe the same: with the video call function, we are able to see each other’s face and talk with ease. If some people are not familiar with video call, they can even voice message others, making communication easier while reducing the hassle of typing. No doubt, Facebook has greatly changed our lives with both positive and negative effects. And I also believe that it is when we find the balance between technology and relationships can we enhance our happiness level and relationship with people. That is, we need to go out and have face-to-face conversations with people while using technology to help us keep connection with
The idea of needing social networking sites to connect with everyone else knows or may meet have become embedded in American culture throughout recent years, especially among the teenage population. Facebook is easily one of the most popular sites, to the point where it would be considered unusual for someone attending high school to not have a profile on the site. However, does Facebook actually create a stronger connection between people, or does it simply creates the illusion of a healthy social life, while really creating distances a distance between them? Facebook can function as a placebo for some users in the place of genuine, healthy social life. Users with massive amounts of Facebook friends, but sub-par social lives can become pre-occupied
Have you ever made any friends via Facebook, Twitter, or Snapchat that you have never met before? I know I have through Twitter due to having the same interests. Some may say those friends are not really your friends, but virtual ones instead. In the article, “The Limits of Friendships,” by Maria Konnikova, she talks about friendships that are made virtually and in reality. The author argues that the use of social media has hindered friendships and face to face connections within one’s social circle, however, she does not address that they have met their closest support group through social media. Face to face connections help identify who one’s true friends are and they are more realistically made when it is in person rather than over social media, but there Konnikova fails to address the fact that social media has allowed many to connect
Most social networks make it possible for individuals to upload their entire life to a public profile. You’re not only sharing personal information with your friends but also the friends of your friends. Personal information spreads rapidly on a Social Networking Site than through a real-life network and sometimes provides more information than we would have thought. A social networking site is defined as a network of individuals related to each other based on a common interest or a real-life connection. The popularity of these sites introduces the use of a new and easy form of communication. People spend countless hours interacting with their ‘friends’ on these sites with the help of a ‘comment’ and a ‘like’ button.
and family, and also “meet like-minded people” ( Metz, par. 1). In some cases, business people such as Ron West, claim that he uses Facebook “to become acquainted with new customers”( par. 8). Yes, these types of websites are great tools to stay in touch with old classmatesand faraway family members. It is a great source of communication, but there is always a con to every pro. Even though users are connecting with others, users of social networks never know exact...
In Betty White’s opening monologue to Saturday Night Live, she said, “I didn’t know what Facebook was, and now that I do know what it is, I have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time. I would never say the people on it are losers, but that’s only because I’m polite.” Originally intended for the use of students at Harvard University in 2004, Facebook grew exponentially to be an online phenomenon in the years following. In 2006, it became accessible to anyone and everyone with internet connection. Aside from the advantages that give the site its popularity, creating a profile comes with a number of significant disadvantages inherit to online social networks. What do more than 500 million active users use their Facebook for? Communicating with long distance friends and spreading awareness of causes are common responses. Unfortunately, Facebook has it flaws, from limiting the privacy of relationships to creating a form of almost unmanageable bullying, making one reconsider their involvement and think, “do I really want my Facebook account?”
In this day and age, many individuals simply cannot go without some sort of socialization. Specifically speaking, most participate in online social networking sites. The most popular and used one is commonly known as Facebook. Facebook was created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. By 2007, Facebook had over 21 million users, adding up to 1.6 billion page views every single day. The typical user spends over twenty minutes per day on Facebook and two thirds of the users log in every day at least once. It is not questionable as to why many people have a Facebook account. Facebook is generally efficient, easy for socialization, and not difficult to manage. Most organizations are affiliated with Facebook, as “almost 22,000 organizations had Facebook directories,” as of November 2006. A year after that in 2007, Facebook was named the seventh most popular website (Ellison 1). However, with anything well known, many oppose to using Facebook and hold criticism against the popular network. There are many flaws in the website and the relationships it starts online. Facebook is risking dangerous activities, ignoring privacy laws, and demeaning healthy socialization.
Today social media has become a big influence on society. There are many different social media sites that allow people to interact with others. Such social media sites are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. There are many more different sites, but these are the popular networks that are being used today. These sites allow you to connect with anybody you want to. Social media sites can make you feel connected with others and seem like the best thing, but at the same time it can be a weakness that many of us have.
We live in a world that has become addicted and dedicated toward social media and it is driving America’s youth into the ground. Teenagers and adults are so wrapped up in social media that is runs their lives every day. Constantly people are checking their phones for the latest on social networks. They have to see pictures, tweets, statuses, comments, likes, and the list goes on and on. Social media is becoming the focus point in the modern American society that it is beginning to control people’s social skills, communication skills, and their livelihood.
Social media is a phrase being thrown around a lot these days, but it can be difficult to answer the question “What really is Social media?” Social media is essentially the websites and applications we use to create and share content about our every day lives, through participation on various sites. Information technology (IT) is the category that social networking falls under, and is rapidly changing while being integrated into many areas of modern day Australian life. The reason being, children of the 21st century are considered the digital generation. It’s the latest technology that spreads information faster than any other media around the world; and this is why social media is appealing to the ‘digital generation’. Social media has a number of positive characteristics in every day life, however there are also a number of negatives that correlate. The negatives of social media have not only been proven to damage the well being of individuals, furthermore their families and communities also feel the effects.
Marche, Stephen. “Is Facebook Making us Lonely? (Cover story)”: 8 (10727825) 309.4 (2012): 68. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
For many teens, social media sites like Facebook and Instagram are the most common spots for meeting friends online. According to PewResearchCenter
Facebook is beneficial to one's social life because they can continuously stay in contact with their friends and relatives, while others say that it can cause increased antisocial tendencies because people are not directly communicating with each other. But some argue that Facebook has affected the social life and activity of people in various ways. With its availability on many mobile devices, Facebook allows users to continuously stay in touch with friends, relatives and other acquaintances wherever they are in the world, as long as there is access to the Internet. Users can upload pictures, update statuses, play games, get news, add people, like and share photos, videos, memes