In a world filled with advancements ranging from smartphones to artificial intelligence, the digital age is not something we can shy away from. Technology has wormed its way into every facet of our lives, breaking down barriers and forging the path to new, yet not entirely favorable, human experience. Interpersonal relationships are not to be excluded from the blast radius of the technological explosion of the 1990s. Instant messages and dating apps cloud the minds of the younger generation, guising cheap hookups and doomed relationships as romance. In the essay “Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts,” Jonathan Franzen tackles the battle between lifeless flings and true human transparency, focusing in on how technology has cultivated and
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There are a multitude of existing websites in which people can create accounts based around their own personal characteristics and preferences. However, this also means they are able to log on to a number of these websites and potentially lie about certain aspects of their lives, the most common one being age, for example. As long as someone’s sitting alone in a room behind a computer screen, they are able to be whoever they want to be because those who are exposed to them on the Internet cannot see or hear or meet them for themselves. In “Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts,” Jonathan Franzen touches on the fragility of reputations and the overall concern for likeability, explaining that when you imagine a person defined by a desperation to be liked, you see “a person without integrity, without a center. In more pathological cases, you see a narcissista person who can’t tolerate the tarnishing of his or her self-image that not being liked represents, and who therefore either withdraws from human contact or goes to extreme, integrity-sacrificing lengths to be likeable” (145). Technology is allowing its users to build and maintain a certain reputation online that is either different or less fragile than the one they possess in reality. The circumstances under which these reputations are upheld are ever-changing, which leads to the variety of ways users manage their reputations. In an article by Mary Madden and Aaron Smith of the Pew Research center entitled “Reputation Management and Social Media,” they point out that “while some Internet users are careful to project themselves online in a way that suits specific audiences, other internet users embrace an open approach to sharing information about themselves and do not take steps to restrict what they share” (N.p.). The anonymity the Internet and social media platforms provide enables people to conceal
There are a multitude of existing websites in which people can create accounts based around their own personal characteristics and preferences. However, this also means they are able to log on to a number of these websites and potentially lie about certain aspects of their lives, the most common one being age, for example. As long as someone’s sitting alone in a room behind a computer screen, they are able to be whoever they want to be because those who are exposed to them on the Internet cannot see or hear or meet them for themselves. In “Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts,” Jonathan Franzen touches on the fragility of reputations and the overall concern for likeability, explaining that when you imagine a person defined by a desperation to be liked, you see “a person without integrity, without a center. In more pathological cases, you see a narcissista person who can’t tolerate the tarnishing of his or her self-image that not being liked represents, and who therefore either withdraws from human contact or goes to extreme, integrity-sacrificing lengths to be likeable” (145). Technology is allowing its users to build and maintain a certain reputation online that is either different or less fragile than the one they possess in reality. The circumstances under which these reputations are upheld are ever-changing, which leads to the variety of ways users manage their reputations. In an article by Mary Madden and Aaron Smith of the Pew Research center entitled “Reputation Management and Social Media,” they point out that “while some Internet users are careful to project themselves online in a way that suits specific audiences, other internet users embrace an open approach to sharing information about themselves and do not take steps to restrict what they share” (N.p.). The anonymity the Internet and social media platforms provide enables people to conceal