Why Being Connected Is Detrimental to the Future of Friendships and Community Tweeting, updating Instagram, and sharing one’s every thought to Facebook has emerged as a worldwide epidemic. Social networking sites are tools used to help ordinary people render themselves as extraordinary beings to those who follow them. Although social networking has provided people with outstanding ways to communicate and be connected, there will always be repercussions to things that bring “good” to our communities. “I tweet, therefore I Am”, by Peggy Orenstein discusses the many consequences that the social network has prevailed amongst society. Those consequences affect mostly friendships and the community and will continue to affect them in the future.
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Social network sites have people feel infatuated with the fact that they can change who they are at the very tip of their finger, but at what cost? The enhancement of one’s personality could eventually harm the idea of having friends and can hurt communities throughout the world. Many might figure that this was simply an unintended consequence of the social network phenomenon however, it has evidently caused misconceptions of who you are actually socializing with online. It is true, tweeting and updating your Facebook account is addicting, I find myself altering and being careful of what I post on my social media accounts in order to live up to the unspoken standards of being socially connected. It was as if I posted what I felt my friends and followers wanted to hear, rather than present who I really was because, I did not want to come across as boring. This stirs up a problem with friends, because those who know you and interact with you on a daily basis raise their suspicion as to why you are acting like this online. Everyone by now has witnessed it by now. The quiet girl or boy that sits next to you in class or your shy unspoken co-worker may be a completely different person on social media. Altering who you truly are is dangerous. Orenstein states, “The expansion of our digital universe Second life, Facebook, Myspace, Twitterhas shifted not only how we spend our time but also how we construct identity” (253). She is explaining that these new social media outlets are causing people to spend time and energy on creating an image of someone that they wished they were instead of putting their true self out there. This forging of new identities online will ultimately lead to no genuine socialization with the community. The future thought of having friends also hints at a future world with little contact and could possibly evolve to a society where
Social network sites have people feel infatuated with the fact that they can change who they are at the very tip of their finger, but at what cost? The enhancement of one’s personality could eventually harm the idea of having friends and can hurt communities throughout the world. Many might figure that this was simply an unintended consequence of the social network phenomenon however, it has evidently caused misconceptions of who you are actually socializing with online. It is true, tweeting and updating your Facebook account is addicting, I find myself altering and being careful of what I post on my social media accounts in order to live up to the unspoken standards of being socially connected. It was as if I posted what I felt my friends and followers wanted to hear, rather than present who I really was because, I did not want to come across as boring. This stirs up a problem with friends, because those who know you and interact with you on a daily basis raise their suspicion as to why you are acting like this online. Everyone by now has witnessed it by now. The quiet girl or boy that sits next to you in class or your shy unspoken co-worker may be a completely different person on social media. Altering who you truly are is dangerous. Orenstein states, “The expansion of our digital universe Second life, Facebook, Myspace, Twitterhas shifted not only how we spend our time but also how we construct identity” (253). She is explaining that these new social media outlets are causing people to spend time and energy on creating an image of someone that they wished they were instead of putting their true self out there. This forging of new identities online will ultimately lead to no genuine socialization with the community. The future thought of having friends also hints at a future world with little contact and could possibly evolve to a society where