Is Facebook Making Us Lonely
Unfortunately, in this day of age, we as a society have become far too dependent on technology and social media. Just taking a moment to look around yourself you can’t help but see so many people either swiping away on their phones or mindlessly lending over towards their computers. However, you can’t help but ask what are they doing? More than likely everyone was on one of the many social media platforms. In the article “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” the author argues that Facebook, one of the most popular forms of social media ever, is the reason why much of society is the way it is. For example, there used to be a point in time, where friends and families remembered each other’s birthdays and would mail you a birthday card, offer to take
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“According to Cornell University's Steven Strogatz, social media sites can make it more difficult for us to distinguish between the meaningful relationships we foster in the real world, and the numerous casual relationships formed through social media. By focusing so much of our time and psychic energy on these less meaningful relationships, our most important connections, he fears, will weaken (Jung) .” Unfortunately, Jung provides to us that this takes away from the true human experience. There is so much that we need that you cannot get through social media such as a warming hug when something tragic happens or someone to help you with a shelf that you’ve been trying to install in your bathroom for instance that you cannot do via Facebook. We miss out on these team building and comforting opportunities. In Eric Klinenberg’s article “Facebook Isn't Making Us Lonely” he argues that just because someone can be living by themselves and enjoys spending their time interacting with the online community doesn’t mean that person is “alone” or “lonely”. He argues that someone can simply void that feeling or need for human interaction with simply, besides social media, a pet or a strong faith in a higher being such as god. Not just that but he claims that ”there’s zero evidence that we’re more detached or lonely than ever” when scientists are taking their time to prove that it in fact is (Klinenberg).” According to him, the focus on something else in the person’s life fills that emptiness that the other articles claim to say that Facebook causes. While we can understand where Klinenberg is coming from, we can also argue that this is essentially like having a
“According to Cornell University's Steven Strogatz, social media sites can make it more difficult for us to distinguish between the meaningful relationships we foster in the real world, and the numerous casual relationships formed through social media. By focusing so much of our time and psychic energy on these less meaningful relationships, our most important connections, he fears, will weaken (Jung) .” Unfortunately, Jung provides to us that this takes away from the true human experience. There is so much that we need that you cannot get through social media such as a warming hug when something tragic happens or someone to help you with a shelf that you’ve been trying to install in your bathroom for instance that you cannot do via Facebook. We miss out on these team building and comforting opportunities. In Eric Klinenberg’s article “Facebook Isn't Making Us Lonely” he argues that just because someone can be living by themselves and enjoys spending their time interacting with the online community doesn’t mean that person is “alone” or “lonely”. He argues that someone can simply void that feeling or need for human interaction with simply, besides social media, a pet or a strong faith in a higher being such as god. Not just that but he claims that ”there’s zero evidence that we’re more detached or lonely than ever” when scientists are taking their time to prove that it in fact is (Klinenberg).” According to him, the focus on something else in the person’s life fills that emptiness that the other articles claim to say that Facebook causes. While we can understand where Klinenberg is coming from, we can also argue that this is essentially like having a