Online communication through social media has attain global popularity. In today’s high tech society, staying connected with friends and family closeby and faraway could not be any simpler. "Social media technologies have been integrated into students’ lives", says Rutledge, and "impacts how they relate to the world" (Rutledge). This somewhat unlimited access to one another can have its positive and negative effects on those that use it. Author Sherry Turkle’s book “Alone Together” sheds a new light on the effects of social media. Her writing mentions the development of personality and the barriers that social media presents which allows people to easily disconnect from another. In Clive Thompson’s “The dumbest generation? No, Twitter is making
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Turkle reminds the reader that social media is a tool “to defend us against loneliness”, to create intense connections that also help us create newer, better selves (Turkle 23). By writing a 13,000 page gaming tutorial, the 14 year old gamer in Clive Thompson’s article shows that others seek out connections with those with similar interest to achieve a sense of togetherness that is not easily attained in the real world. This virtual escape, coined “Second Life”, allows a person to become more outgoing and take chances that would be challenging and a bit frightening to accomplish in the real world (146). This risk taking and openness granted in the virtual world, what Erik Erikson calls moratorium, creates new aspects of one’s personality that may become transferred into the personality shown in the natural …show more content…
Students are “learning how to conduct themselves online - how to have productive conversations and exchanges” stated Heidi Siwak, Ontario elementary school teacher. These productive conversations are, unfortunately, limited to the virtual world. By easily disconnecting from those through a screen, real life social interaction has taken a beating. People now have low expectations of forming connections with those in the natural world, of which they cannot control. Thompson’s argument that the length of freshman paper’s increase is a product of social media’s involvement is not completely factual, the writing expectations for students changed with “rising education standards, and the better availability of information” (Thompson). Today’s three page research paper may be the equivalent of two paragraphs in previous years. There are plenty of positives and negatives that can be analyzed in reference to social media and it is up to the individual to pick a
Turkle reminds the reader that social media is a tool “to defend us against loneliness”, to create intense connections that also help us create newer, better selves (Turkle 23). By writing a 13,000 page gaming tutorial, the 14 year old gamer in Clive Thompson’s article shows that others seek out connections with those with similar interest to achieve a sense of togetherness that is not easily attained in the real world. This virtual escape, coined “Second Life”, allows a person to become more outgoing and take chances that would be challenging and a bit frightening to accomplish in the real world (146). This risk taking and openness granted in the virtual world, what Erik Erikson calls moratorium, creates new aspects of one’s personality that may become transferred into the personality shown in the natural …show more content…
Students are “learning how to conduct themselves online - how to have productive conversations and exchanges” stated Heidi Siwak, Ontario elementary school teacher. These productive conversations are, unfortunately, limited to the virtual world. By easily disconnecting from those through a screen, real life social interaction has taken a beating. People now have low expectations of forming connections with those in the natural world, of which they cannot control. Thompson’s argument that the length of freshman paper’s increase is a product of social media’s involvement is not completely factual, the writing expectations for students changed with “rising education standards, and the better availability of information” (Thompson). Today’s three page research paper may be the equivalent of two paragraphs in previous years. There are plenty of positives and negatives that can be analyzed in reference to social media and it is up to the individual to pick a