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Impact of social media on public opinion
Impact of social media on public opinion
Impact of social media on public opinion
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The notions of "Strong ties" and "Hierarchies" seem to be a bit over exaggerated in Malcolm Gladwell's essay "Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted." Gladwell terms every successful thing on the basis of strong ties and hierarchies, and every unsuccessful thing on the basis of weak ties. Strong ties as termed by Gladwell are those which have personal connections, whereas he mentions the example of social media as a weak tie. However, through Zadie Smith's "Speaking in Tounges," we are able to interpret that weak ties also do have the strong power to transmit an idea or behavior from one person to another. The deepest problem lying in Gladwell's assumption is that he doesn't bother looking at the positive side of social media, …show more content…
or perhaps weak ties, that how they could help one or inspire one to lofty heights; however, Smith's essay shows us how her mood from a state of anxiety and confusion at the beginning of her essay changes to a more optimistic one at the end, all through the different books she read and to the people she looked up to, Obama being an example.
She obviously did not have any strong connections with those books or Obama, it is the "weak tie" which led her to a sense of optimism towards the end of her essay.
The notion of "weak ties" has probably reached a point where it needs no introduction. Gladwell implies, "The platforms of social media are built around weak ties"(Gladwell,137). Social media is termed by Gladwell as a "weak tie," despite mentioning numerous examples himself which give concrete evidence that social media is indeed strong enough to transmit ideas within people. For example, the case of lost cell phone, where through the use of social media was the owner able to get her phone back. However, through Smith's experiences, we are able to interpret that weak ties have the strong power needed to transmit ideas and behaviors. As Smith implies "As George Bernard Shaw delicately put it in his preface to the play Pygmalion, many thousands of British men and women...have sloughed off their native dialects and acquired a new tongue"(Smith,248).
Smith mentions the play Pygmalion for the fact that the play somewhat resembles her current situation, the loss of her own identity as she tries to acquire a new way of speaking. She mentions Eliza Doolittle, a girl who tried changed her voice and lost herself in the process. However, through that play, she moves on to president Obama, and looks at him as an perfect example of a biracial. Obviously Smith does not have any sort of strong ties with Obama, yet he inspires her to the fact that having multiple voices is not a burden, rather a luxury everyone can afford to have. She mentions the cases of Obama being able to speak like a jewish male, black old lady from the south as cases where he is not able to speak only for his people, but in fact speak them. Smith seemingly enjoys others having multiple voices; however, regrets herself having more than one voice. The choice of her words regarding this, as she says she "picked it up" seems to suggest that this new voice was not fundamental to her identity, rather a way to fit into her new environment. Her naivety is what led her to lose her real tongue, as she suggests "I thought this was the voice of lettered people"(Smith,247). Changing your speech to fit in obviously shows one is "two-faced." However, took take inspiration from, Smith mentions Shaw, Obama, Shakespeare, people who have multiple voices and able to live with their real identity too. It shows that strong ties are not a necessity if one is to grasp new ideas, weak ties are more than capable of doing what Gladwell suggests only strong ties can do, that is, transmit new ideas from person to person. Gladwell's notion of strong ties only successfully being able to transmit new ideas or inspire one is easily disregarded through Smith's essay, where she mentions the likes of Obama and Shakespeare, with whom she has no connection or "strong tie," are easily able to inspire Smith that having multiple voices is not a bad thing to have, it just depends on how one voices them out. Her mood at the end of her essay is rather optimistic, vastly different from what it was at the beginning of her essay, which was a sense of confusion and anxiety.
“People don't rise from nothing....It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't”(Gladwell 18).
In conclusion, Carr and Gladwell’s essays have proven that the internet positive effects are outweighed by its negative effects. Carr has found he is unable to finish a full text anymore or concentrate. He thinks that the internet has taken our natural intelligence and turned it into artificial intelligence. Gladwell discusses how nowadays, social activism doesn’t have the same risk or impact as former revolutions such as the Civil Rights Movement. The internet is mostly based on weak ties based among people who do not truly know each other and would not risk their lives for their
“Nothing is perfect.” Though social media brings us uncountable convenience, there is a trade-off with the convenience. Due to the advanced technology we have, social media has become part of our life, which it means that social media could determine our sociability. In Peggy Orenstein’s “I Tweet, Therefore I Am,” though she praises Tweeter for its convenience, at the same time, she also worries that “(Tweeter) makes the greasepaint permanent, blurring the lines not only between public and private but also between the authentic and contrived self.” Since we don’t care about who we talk to, we might act abnormally due to our feelings, and
People have the fundamental desire to maintain strong connections with others. Through logic and reasoning, Sherry states, “But what do we have, now that we have what we say we want, now that we have what technology makes easy?”(Turkle). Face to face conversations are now mundane because of the accessibility to interact at our fingertips, at free will through text, phone calls and social media. Belonging, the very essence of a relationship has now become trivial.
Gladwell strongly believes that activism was viewed in a much different way before technology took over the world. In the 1960’s protests, and boycotts spread rapidly but usually only among friends. Today, information spreads to thousands of people in seconds due to social media. Gladwell believes traditional activism formed strong-ties whereas today 's movements and protests form weak-ties because of social media. People are motivated when they have close friends with them in a movement, not just through a text message. As Gladwell states, “where activists were once defined by their causes, they are now defined by their tools.” (Gladwell 408) Gladwell believes these tools can’t really help a social activism movement, but he does acknowledge the speed of social media networks. But, without news and social media how will the information spread? Anything placed on the internet can be broadcasted to a large audience within seconds. Gladwell writes: “Social networks are effective at increasing participation—by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires.” (Gladwell 408) Gladwell makes a good point but how will the motivation ever be there without people receiving information? Nevertheless social media has many flaws, but with other tools
1. Malcolm Gladwell’s primary objective in Outliers is to examine achievement and failure as cultural phenomena in order to determine the factors that typically promote success. His main argument that success results from a complicated mix of factors, requires taking a closer look at why certain people, and even entire groups of people, thrive while others fail. In the chapter “The Three lessons of Joe Flom” it describes another success story for the reader to inspect. The chapter is mostly about success and failure as we look into the life of a man who, against everyone he knew, succeeded in an occupation in which he had not been accepted in so he decide that he was going to make a name for himself anyway. Gladwell begins to describe Joe Flom's origins by revealing to the reader that his family was in poverty, “His parents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. His father, Isadore, was a union organizer in the garment industry
Social media is the current fad and has been increasing over the past three decades. Today’s generation is all about who is on Facebook, Twitter, or Intagram, but what they are forgetting is who is actually sitting right beside them. At any given location, one can find several people sitting together at a table in a restaurant. What they see is different from decades before. People are not talking to each other instead they are on social media sites “talking” to someone else, maybe even in another country. That is the problem. People have lost the ability to be social among people in face to face interactions. There are two theories, Structural Functionalism and Symbolic Interaction, that can help
In her article “Friends Indeed?” Joel Garreau explains that for two decades, online social networks have been touted as one of the finest flowerings of our new era. But what is the strength of ties so weak as to barely exist? Who will lend you lunch money? Who’s got your back?” Technology has overtaken individuals by social media, allowing many people to communicate online rather than having face-to-face communication. Many “relationships” begin online, and end online. Although, true relationships are rarely created fast, it gradually grows and becomes stronger and stronger over the years. However, in our immediate society this is not the case. But the questions still remains, as Joel Garreau points out “Who would lend you lunch money?” in other words, who will help you physically not online. In our impatient society, technologies influenced the way individual communicate, and that often times leads to depression, loneliness and addictions.
The more social media we have, the more we think we 're connecting, yet we are really disconnecting from each other. – JR
In an article in the The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, it was noted that “the more diverse the mobilization, the more personalized the expressions often become, typically involving communication technologies that allow individuals to activate their loosely tied social networks” (Bennet). Meaning that through the use of communication technologies, such as Twitter, individuals are bale to create movements that have a much more personalized expression than ever before. Furthermore, In a study published in the Journal of Information Policy, it was stated that the weak ties created through social media mare, in fact, able to “affect relationships and contribute to change” (Jonathan). Meaning that while Donald Trump obviously does not have personal relationships with his many followers on Twitter, he is still able to connect to them and through that connection affect real world change. The obvious example of his success in that regard would be the recent election. Throughout his campaign Trump used Twitter as a way of connecting to the public and come election day his hard-work paid off with him winning enough states to gain a majority in the electoral
"We believe that more relationships provide more opportunity." (Source 2). It has gotten into the minds of avid Internet users that the more people you have retweeting you, liking your pictures, or your status, the more social you become. How many of these followers are actually their friends? The more notifications you have on social media does not equal the amount of friends you have. It does not make you social, it just makes you another active user on social media. Receiving notifications does not help you make friends. Even just having a little chat with people online does not mean you are friends. More relationships with people online do not provide any opportunity of creating any real friendships. Friendship are not created by liking someone's status or retweeting someone's picture. ". . . online Americans tend to have 644 ties on average." (Source 1). There is more focus on making connections, than making real friends. A casual conversation does not automatically create a real friendship. Online you can create a larger group of connections, but this does not make you social. The social ties that the internet offers do not create a real bond between people. Social media connections do not help you create a real relationship with another person. More social ties do not mean you are interacting with more people, it just means you have connections with a larger group. I don’t agree with the belief that
The purpose of this literary analysis is to determine if social networks are helpful or harmful to relationships. As social networking evolves, different aspects of communication suffer. Such as the social penetration theory, which “describes people as onions with several layers of information”. pressed tightly together in the cuff. The outermost layer consists of the kind of information you would get.
In the article “Negative Effects of Social Media” Ashlie Brooke Kincel states, “people begin focusing so much of their time on their relationships on social media networks that [it has] become difficult to distinguish between our real life relationships,” meaning that those who put more effort into communicating electronically can eventually be seen as neglecting their “real” relationship with someone close and it can one day become awkward or be as emotional connected as it once was. This can happen because writing through social media apps lacks body language, facial expressions, tonality and even physical contact, preventing a healthy and normal conversation. When using social media apps, people use fewer words to communicate because it is fast and it gets straight to the point. In the 2013 issue of newspaper magazine Social Work Today, the article “Social Media and Interpersonal Communication,” by Maura Keller states, “our interactions on social media tend to be weak ties—that is, we don’t feel as personally connected to the people at the other end of our communication as we do when we’re face-to-face.” Here, Keller tries to explain how communicating through social media apps does not carry the same meaning of building a social relationship as talking to someone physically because a strong connection between the people is not being made. Therefore, social media is causing an antisocial epidemic amongst the younger and older generations who tend to constantly use and rely on social media apps as a form of daily communication with family and
Consider a situation where a family is sitting at the dining table, the son pull out his iPhone, connects to Wi-Fi, and starts chatting with his friends on “Facebook”. The father has a Samsung Galaxy S4 in his hands and he is reading the newspaper online and using “Whatsapp” messenger while having his meal. The mother is busy texting her friends. They are all “socializing” but none of them has spoken as much as a single word to each other. This situation can be commonly seen nowadays. Technology has brought us closer and squeezed the distances but in reality, it has taken us away from each other. The rapid growth of technology has brought about significant changes in human lives, especially in their relationships. The latest technologies have turned this world into a “global village” but the way humans interact with each other, the types of relations and their importance has changed a lot. The advancement in technology has brought us close but has also taken us apart.