Robert Whitley Analysis

Today’s younger generations, myself included, use social media at an alarming amount. With the invention of Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, and Twitter’s DM’s it is almost impossible to not get in contact with someone using these and many other modems of communication. Some say that the connectivity that social media provides users is an amazing advancement in the world of technology. Others, however, argue that social media can have negative health risks on its users. These risks could range from sleep deprivation to depression and other such health problems involving body image and eating disorders. Reading the two articles from the assignment, I have found that there are two connecting points within the two articles, that point being that …show more content…
This point being that the people, myself including, when scrolling through their Facebook news-feeds, Instagram, Snapchats, or even Twitters they see these images and posts about what is happening in other people’s lives. When seeing some of these images or reading these posts it can be damaging to someone’s self-esteem, because what they are seeing only the very best of people have to say or show, and sometimes these images are highly filtered and edited to make those in the image and the image itself more appealing than it actually is. This makes the viewers feel a sense of self-consciousness because of what Robert Whitley describes as “F.O.M.O.” or “Fear Of Missing Out” (Robert Whitley) this is where someone can feel “envy and resentment.” (Robert Whitley.) This I know to be true in my own life. When I sit on the couch with my girlfriend and she’ll be on her phone looking at different celebrities and seeing what they are doing at the time it’s usually something amazing; cliff-diving, water-skiing with the dolphins, and other adventurous activities, and she sits there and tells me how much she wishes she could be them and do the kinds of things they are doing. And after she looks at these celebrities she always gets quiet and she feels jealous of these …show more content…
And as talked about in class Professor Zrzavy showed us images of different advertisements taken from different websites and magazines and the class examined what the advertisements were portraying and what the point the creators were making when they created the images. Something that was common with the images were that they mostly depicted women in different scenarios, all of them skinny, tall and pretty, they were all “perfect,” according to societies standards of women. Roeder brings up that there have been some recent studies that show because of the advertisements and this so called “perfect woman body,” that spikes in eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia in women have risen. Even “girls as young as three to six year olds are worrying about their weight.” (Amy Roeder) And as we have been shown in class the “perfect woman body” is used incessantly in advertisements both in magazines and