Is Facebook Making Us Lonely

In an era where it is as easy as the push of a button to talk to or even have a face to face conversation with someone, why is it that the majority of people would prefer to text? Society has traded relationships for convenience at the expense of health. This theme is quite apparent through the lens of two works. Both The Public Image by Muriel Spark and “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” by Stephen Marche discuss how a person is affected when they become isolated. In this context, I will not be discussing physical isolation, as Annabel and Frederick are in fact surrounded by people. The definition of loneliness I will be using will be that of social or emotional isolation. Emotional isolation, which in these cases is worse than physical isolation, …show more content…
4). When a person is lonely, they come to think that the world is different from what it really is. Marche states that loneliness is “not a matter of external conditions; it is a psychological state,” and has “roughly the same genetic component as other psychological problems” (Marche par. 9). Given that there are genetic components of loneliness, it stands to reason that some individuals will feel emotionally isolated no matter how many people they surround themselves with. A delusion is defined as a state of deception. Therefore, if loneliness is a psychological state, then people who are lonely are living in their delusion of being alone and not the bustling world that those who are not lonely are living in. From this information, it is easy to conclude that people who are isolated see the world differently from those who make a lot of meaningful …show more content…
It is assumed in the novel that Frederick planned and directed his own suicide based on his suicide letters, however, this information is brought about by Billy who is known to lie when it is expedient as evidenced by when he photocopied the letters. Therefore the question becomes, did Frederick really stage his suicide, or did Billy craft the whole story to finagle money from Annabel? Assuming that Frederick wanted to die for reasons other than just wanting to ruin Annabel’s reputation, which considering the fact that over 90% of people who die by suicide have a diagnosable mental illness we can assume there were, it would not be much of a leap to say that he was suffering from a delusion in some form. This idea is further supported by the knowledge that Frederick saw himself as a tortured artist who never took acting jobs because they weren’t “right” despite the fact that he rarely ever actually had offers. If he was mentally ill, then in his depressive episode it is possible that he truly believed that his mother was alive. People in the midst of a depressive episode are far more impressionable than they would ordinarily be; so, it is possible that Frederick could have believed that Annabel did all of the things he outlined in the letter to his mother and that he was only making present evidence of past events when he staged the orgy. This is admittedly unlikely as it would have to be caused by a severe psychotic