More handpicked essays just for you.
Online versus face to face communication
Why is Facebook not making us lonely
Does facebook make us lonely summary
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Online versus face to face communication
Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?
In the article "Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?" written by Stephen Marche (2012), claims that Facebook and social media disconnects users from reality and making them feel lonely. He does so by utilizing ethos, negative diction, and people's personal thoughts. Marche also shows his position by stating a tragic death, due to social media, and has multiple different studies from different sources in his article.
I in the other hand, agree to an extent, about Marche's beliefs, that Facebook and other social medias does make people feel lonely and disconnects internet users from reality every time they log in. Since it makes us feel distant from people, yet I also believe Facebook and other media sites bring people together as well. Ending the miserable feeling of being lonely. Then again, every person has their own personal thoughts and feelings, making them feel differently in how they portray Facebook and other kinds of social media in their own lives.
…show more content…
Which I believe it does, from personal experience when I use Facebook. It starts as me just logging on to see what others have done in their lives, from people who live near and far from me. When I see my “friends,” who most are my family members, who live in Mexico, and read their news feed. I do indeed get a little depress and lonely, for I only see and read happy moments through a screen, that they are experiencing with the other family members around them. Making me feel lonely, because I don’t physically get to experience the same happiness with them. I only see what’s going on and not really engage with it, causing me to feel left
In Scott Brown’s essay Facebook Friendonomics, he discusses the idea of infinite friendspace and friend hoarding as allowed by social networks and what he calls the “networked world” (para. 3). In his essay, he mainly criticizes how these networks have turned people and relationships into a kind of social “currency” that follows the same rules as financial relations: more is better, but the more you have, the less worth each friend holds (para. 3). Friends are no longer people with whom one has a relationship or connection with -- instead they are simply collectibles that are infinitely preserved in the folder “Friend” (para. 2). Thus, social networks allow people to hoard friends through a kind of “friendonomics,” as people grow more and
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
In a day and age of a social media dominance, we have never been as densely connected and networked as we ever have. Through studies and researchers, it has been shown that we never have been as lonelier, or even narcissistic. As a result all this loneliness has not only made us mentally ill, but physically ill as well. Published in The Atlantic on April 2, 2012, Stephen Marche addresses this argument in his article entitled “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely”.
One’s amount of Facebook reflects how popular one wish to appear online more than how healthy one’s friendship truly is. Constant usage of Facebook allows user to potentially feel like they have a meaningful social life, when in reality, they are missing something. In Stephen Marche’s 2102 article, “Is Facebook making Us Lonely?” he notes that Facebook was introduced to the world in the midst of spreading and intensifying loneliness, an idea to which he greatly attributes Facebook’s appeal and success (Marche 26). Initially, social networking sites seem to be evidence of modern-day social interaction being easier and more convenient than ever.
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
Social media is like a virus, you can’t stop people from going online. Depression itself has no remedy, people just have to balance it by therapy and medication. There is no solution to the growing rates of social media connecting to depression, but there has been many studies that proves it to be true. Counseling psychologist, Katey Baruth claims that “participants who did not believe their friendships were of great quality or value on social media sites were also found to be at much greater risk for the development of depressive symptoms”. She explains how social media users believes that social interactions are not valuable which is likely for them to experience the depressive symptoms. It goes back to personal perception, people can choose to use social media to connect with others or they can put themselves down. Of course, many older generations will probably disagree with this assertion that people can’t just choose how they feel. Older generations will blame social media itself, how everything is complicated because it’s easier to find resources and it decreases our social interaction. Marche mentions Moira Burke, a graduate student at the Human-Computer Institute at Carnegie Mellon who studied Facebook users, she believes that, “People whose friends write to them semi-publicly on Facebook experience decreases in loneliness… [Versus] scanning your friends’ status updates and updating the world on your own activities via your wall… correlates to feelings of disconnectedness”. She clarifies that choosing how to communicate online can affect the individual’s mood. It’s a tool for people to choose for socializing or just expressing their
The majority of society has SNS’s, and some of these users are considerably lonely. But just because the statistics of loneliness and social networks are increasing at the same time does not mean the two are related. Loneliness is expected to become a growing trend in the next decade is because of the growing number of older individuals, not the advance in Social Networking Sites (Aarts, Peek, and Wouters 942). This rise of elders in society is a result of the Baby Boom era. During this period of time, an abnormally large amount of babies were born, and now these people are getting older. This means that there is a much larger population of elderly people than usual, and these older individuals are more likely to become depressed and lonely. Many losses come with old age, such as loss of a working atmosphere, physical mobility, or loss of a spouse/child (Aarts, peek, and Wouters 942). Each of these things can be responsible for feelings of loneliness and a reason behind growing loneliness. Also, quality of life is a major factory in whether or not loneliness becomes an issue in one’s life. Certainly a person who deems themselves to be successful, with a healthy marriage, children, and a stable job will not be as lonely as someone who does not. Social Networking sites do not cause people to become lonely when the factors outside of SNS’s have all the power to do
The University of Salford in the UK did a study last year on social media’s effects on self-esteem and anxiety, and reported that 50% of their 298 participants said that their “use of social networks like Facebook and Twitter makes their lives worse”. (Medical Daily) The study also reported that participants 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 –Betty White (“Betty White Quotes,” 2014, para. 1).” This quote can be interpreted to fit with several of the social media avenues that many people spend their time on. Day in and day out people post, tweet, share, and pin countless times throughout the world. These different forms of communication were first created for an easier way for people to connect with others. Yet now, so much time is spent on these social sites that it has warped the interactive part and is causing more damage than good. Many are growing a desire and are living for the amount of “likes” they can receive on a post or how many re-tweets they can generate. Instead of going to these outlets to participate in a partial portion of their social lives, people are filling that time with the technological aspect of communication. As White said, this can become an inordinate amount of wasted time and can ultimately grow into further damaging circumstances. These different social media channels can cause emotional harm through disparaging the relationship between friends, conjuring of a narcissistic personality, and the retrogradation of ones self-esteem.
Facebook can keep you up to date on what is going on around you and around the world. Facebook, along with other social networking sites replace the normal face to face conversations and changes the way we interact with others. One common question that has always been asked when concerning social networking is, “Does it have an affect on one 's psychological well being?” There have been many studies that show that there are both positive and negative effects of Facebook. “Internet causes people to cut off from social interactions by communicating via a socially impoverished medium. The more individuals use FB, the less satisfied they feel about life (Chan 276).” The first study in this article is where they show the relationship between Facebook and how much people use it and how it correlates with their psychological well being. The second study talks about the good and the bad when it comes to Facebook. The third study talks about the empathetic social skills and how it effect those who use Facebook. Then goes on to describe what empathy means, which means the ability to share and understand people and their feelings. And empathy is a good a basis for for good social skills. It is very common for people to portray themselves as someone they are not on Facebook to appear more appealing to their “friends”. They put up
I think Facebook is an great tool to connect with others and share creatively, emotionally, and so on. One can communicate with a long lost friend while listening to their favorite music and reading about the latest gossip within the celebrity world. One may find inspiration through Facebook to teach others or help victims of the latest natural disaster by reading a news article relating to the event. Or one my change their occupation by seeing jobs posted through their Facebook or maybe someone just wants to imitate the newest socialite making headlines from their posts. Either way, one uses Facebook to feel connected with the world around them and interact with people they feel that share this same ideal of digital significance. We are still in the beginning stages of this forever evolving digital culture and I am sure we will witness the next great technological device or new source of new media that will change everything. I feel if things progress in the way they already are we will literally be able to do and see anything and everything within minuets from our mobile devices. We will know and see whatever we want and be connected to whomever we want to socially connect to. I am just waiting for the day when we can actually block people in real life or
Before technology, face to face communication was a normal everyday thing and loneliness was a problem that was rarely talked about or experienced. People went about their day without checking their phone every five minutes or so to see if anyone liked the status they posted or feeling lonely when nobody new liked it. In new studies more and more people have feelings of loneliness and depression. However, more people now use social medias such as Facebook, twitter and instagram. While it is true that technology mainly sites such as Facebook can lead to a person feeling alone, it is also true that it depends on how you use the technology, either to your advantage or as a depressant.
Marche, Stephen. “Is Facebook Making us Lonely? (Cover story)”: 8 (10727825) 309.4 (2012): 68. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
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