Stance on Social Media

Brian Lee

12/1/14

Essay 3

3:50 PM after school on a Wednesday with a project due tomorrow. “Check Facebook”. “Check Instagram”. “Check twitter”. “Check YouTube. 11:00 PM and you got a project due in 8 hours. In the book Alone Together, by Turkle, she explores the concept of how technology, and social media is not only taking over our lives but creating a rift between us as humans and how we interact with each other. In the book she argues that social media toxic and how we should remove it from our lives if we want to prevent ourselves from becoming “robots” In my honest opinion, although I see her point, how social media can be an addiction, I reject her claim in saying that we should remove it. Social media allows us as humans too stay connected and be free to say what we want to say. Technological advances are key in helping our society stay more connected, not turn us into robots.

Turkle makes a lot of good points in the book that I must agree with. I do agree technology can be an addiction and can also be detrimental towards one’s life. When she starts talking about how people are living double lives one on the internet and one in real life, and how that can be bad, I agree. “We expect more from technology and less from each other.” (15) I agree with this because if someone were to start to depend only on their technology for entertainment, business, and life, they will soon become way too addicted. And yes I think phones and social media can be addictive. Once someone suffers through an addiction they revolve their lives around them, in our society we should be revolving our lives around our family and friends, not our phones, and I think that’s the problem she points out. She finds too many people are choosing their phones over actually talking to other people in real life, and that is true. The main issue though, that I agree with, is her idea that people living double lives online are suffering. Yes I wish for people to express themselves however they please, I don’t believe that creating an online profile and completely shutting out their own lives is necessary. Your real life, your life in reality should be the main focus of where you express yourself, not online. Turkle explains, “Beyond all of this, connectivity offers new possibilities for experimenting with identity and, particularly in adolescence, the sense of a free space, what Erik Erikson called the moratorium. (152) the problem she explains is that when we are in real trouble or danger in our real life, our virtual friends will not be there to help and support you. And I find this agreeable and very concerning for the people she is talking about because if they continue to build lives online and not in real life, they won’t have that connection or that someone to depend on when they are in trouble. Turkle says,” We don’t count on cyber friends to come by if we are ill, to celebrate our children’s successes, or help us mourn the death of our parents. I play a lot of video games and have made some friends I have never even met before playing online. Although I find their company online enjoyable, I will never consider them my true real friends, as harsh as that sounds, because the friends I have in my life, here in Mountain View, will be there for me when I am down, or when I am suffering. Not to throw any shots at the friends I met online, they seem like great people, but I just don’t feel comfortable invite them to my house as would my friends who live here. So yes it is dangerous for someone to develop online friendships and consider it their main source for entertainment, because in the end it is the friends you make out here that make your life great and pure. I although do not live a double life online I have found myself more and more procrastinating by indulging myself with online features such as YouTube and Facebook. I spend days on end and find myself struggling to finish assignments early, instead waiting for the last minute. If there was no YouTube, then maybe I would have finished my assignment quicker, but because of social media, and all this technology, I find myself waiting for the last minute to finish an assignment.

Yes Turkle makes good points on why social media is bad, I find her argument hard to agree with because I feel that society revolves so much around technology, we will crash and burn if technology and social media is stripped away. “It can be a big timewaster but it keeps me connected to people that live far away and helps stay connected to friends and family from across the world. I also use social media as a way to contact classmates for homework, and manage businesses, and sometimes just for some entertainment” (Interview with David Tran) I found this quote very important in arguing why social media can be good. Turkle only uses examples of where people are addicted and decides to remove social media without realizing the usefulness of social media. I have 2 cousins in Taiwan that I cannot text, or internationally call, instead we use Facebook as a way of keeping in touch, also with my cousins who live in Vancouver. I also use skype and Line, an Asian form of skype, as a way to talk to my parents who currently work in Asia and reside there. If it were not for social media or technological advances the only means of contacting them would be through Mail which takes around 3 weeks to deliver. Is that really worth it? Another problem is the time zone difference when it is day time here, it is midnight there. Turkle actually meets someone similar in the book. Julia doesn’t really share the same situation as me, but prefers email and texting her dad because she is not ready for face to face conversations, and finds email much more convenient. “I’m going to try to talk to him through email”. Julia is not ready to speak to her dad through the phone.” (244) Another argument she brings up is that talking through the phone or text is destroying true human interaction. I think what she speaks for in this statement is only a handful of individuals who become more introvert because of texting and social media. Does she not realize that kids since they were 6 all the way to adulthood and maybe even until death interact with millions of kids? They see kids every day, high school friends every day, college friends every day, and work colleagues every day, and the only way to be able to contact them is through true human interaction. You cannot expect yourself to never interact with your peers at all and only express yourself through online. Although there are a selected few that is only a handful compared to the number of people who have real human interaction every day. When the Native American man came in for Native American Heritage month, he described technology as a detriment to the earth, killing it and its people if it continues to evolve. He encouraged us to throw away our technology and revert to our Stone Age lifestyle. Although I saw moments where his argument shined, he was not making any sense. He talked about all the evil of technology, but when asked, turns out he owned phones, cars, solar panels, all part of the technology advancement phase. It was then that I thought, technology is our lives. As much as the older generation refuse to accept this idea, we must understand, technology evolution is inevitable, and it has dictated our way of life positively and negatively. Without social media, would I be able to connect to my cousins across the globe? Without social media would I be able to find out what and when my project is due? Without social media, would I be able to live my life? The answer to all those questions is no. ” I think it would be bad because so many people rely on social media not only as a way to connect but to endorse business it is essential towards the growth of society, but for people using it to spread gossip and post pictures of themselves, they can take a break ever so often.(Interview) Social media is an unstoppable force driving our society forward, we might as well go along with the ride.

            Social media has definitely shaped my identity as a person. Using social media has definitely connected me with different people at my school, allowing me to converse with them not only online but also in person. It’s someone’s choice whether or not he or she wants to talk to that person in real life, and I choose the path where I am talking to them both online and in real life. I have met some of my best friends from online video Games. People that go to the same school, I have grown so much closer to them because of online video games and social media, and like I said before, I talk to them as how I would talk to them online, it is a matter of choice whether someone would want to talk or not in real life. That’s why I think social media should be seen more favorably by society, it brings so many good qualities, from talking to a family member across the globe to meeting new people, and even expressing yourself, social media and technological advances are key to making our society function.