So You Ve Been Publicly Shamed Summary

With today’s social media, information is passed around faster than ever. Because of this, people's thoughts and feelings are usually right out in the open for everyone in the world to see. In Jon Ronson’s book “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed” He describes what it means to be publicly shamed on social media, and the consequences of it in different individuals lives. This essay will review the biases and controversies of the author and what future generations will think of the book.
In the beginning of the book Ronson explains an experience he had in his life when his personal information was used as an experiment for a few college kids. He went on to call them our which eventually caused them to be publicly shamed. But the focus of Ronson’s story was to explain how public shaming can affect people, in not positive ways, due to the consequences that followed Ronson’s shamers after they were publicly shamed.

Ronson’s issue that is brought up throughout his book is the effect that public shaming can bring upon people, especially through social media society.

He says “A shaming can be like a distorting mirror at a funfair, taking human nature and making it look monstrous.” (Page 238), Ronsons explains that the reason for public shaming is that it makes those who are accused feel as if what they have done can never be fixed. But Ronsons reasoning is that many times we can assume that the person who is being publicly shamed deserves it, and that their choices should be made public for everyone to see. However, he says that these shamings does not give the person the chance to change or be forgiven of whatever they may have

done.
Ronson gives many examples of people who have been publicly shamed on some form of social media, he also gives examples of people who have shamed others, even giving himself as an example for shaming a person in public. This adds to the convincingness of the book, by showing two sides of an opinion, from those who believe that public shamings can benefit the individual who is being shamed, to those who believe these shamings are too harsh. These examples include stories of individuals who made a simple mistake and were embarrassed from it for years, to judges who use public shaming as a way to change the criminal.
To future generations this book will be very thought provoking and will encourage them to see the world around them more clearly. Social media will probably be around for a while, and many future readers will be dealing with the same problems that we have with public shaming on social media, Ronson says “I think our natural disposition as human is to plod along until we get old and stop. But with social media, we’ve created a stage for constant artificial high drama” (Page 78) Ronsons explains that since the creation of social media networks, we as humans have found a new way to bash other people privately, and have a new way to create “artificial high drama” and it will probably unfortunately continue for as long as social media exists.
In conclusion, Ronson is exceptional at describing the problems that face people on social media, and why they need to think before they post something that might be considered offensive to another person online. But, more importantly he teaches that those who are shaming those publicly need to take into consideration the thoughts of those they are shaming and what it will do to them personally.