Thursday, September 12, 2013
Today, social media is taking over the world. Advances in social networking have provided easy ways for communities to stay connected throughout the globe. Now, nearly everyone is connected to either Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Vine, along with many other social media websites. With these amenities at their fingertips, society is beginning to overindulge. People have become obsessed with posting tweets, making vines, and checking how many likes they have on their latest Instagram picture of their lunch. This obsession, however, has changed the environment of social media with posts of obscene cries for attention.
Striking messages are conveyed in status updates and pictures captioned in order to get more eyes on their posts. Threatening messages are written that claim the readers will be murdered by a one legged, killer clown if they fail to "like" that post. The authors of these posts prey on the fears of their audience to get more digital hits. Even religious beliefs and the reader's faith in God is attacked as a strategy for personal gain in internet popularity. For example, at the bottom of a Facebook post, it might read something similar to, "If you like this post, you love God. If you don't, you're going to hell." These messages constitute blasphemy. They have nothing to do with faith, nor do they have the power to place judgment upon a person's soul. These digital publishings are absurd cries of desperation.
What was previously viewed as socially acceptable is now a vague memory when it comes to social networking. Nothing is off limits if it gets more people to "like" your post. I'm sure we have all heard of the infamous "slap cam." Last time I checked, mercilessly slapping your friends in the face unprovoked, is typically frowned upon by the general public. However, if it is recorded for a vine, it is suddenly encouraged. The lengths that people will go to in order to be recognized or become "vine famous" is endless.
The amount of time that the average person spends with their face buried in their phone is embarrassing. According to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers's annual Internet Trends report, the average person checks their phone 150 times a day. Social networking has given people the opportunity to share their ideas with people all around the globe. Recently, it has become clear that this privilege is being taken advantage of. Alarming messages are being conveyed and shameless actions are being taken to gain the attention of others. Social networking desensitizes society and changes our idea of what is socially acceptable. Who is to say what indecencies will be posted in the future to gain the public's attention.
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Jackie, I have to confess, that there is a fundamental problem with this post. You have chosen a wonderful topic. If you are interested in this - as I am - then you might consider this as a topic for your junior research paper. Unfortunately, in this post, you do not present the problem well. This post is a perfect example of tautological reasoning. You insist that people are overindulging and that our efforts to earn "likes" has become excessive, but you never prove it. You essentially say, we are overindulging because we are overindulging. You include no evidence to support that our desire for "likes" really has deleterious effects on people or society. From what I conclude, the worst part of this overindulgence is that some people get smacked in the face for the "slam cam". The messages about God seem excessive, I agree. However, do people really take these seriously? This is what you need to answer.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, there are some issues with the writing. First, you need to be careful how you use the pronoun "their." Look at these sentences: "With these amenities at their fingertips, society..." and "the average person spends with their face..." In both of these examples you use the plural pronoun "their" to replace a singular antecedent. Second, why do you use the word "however" in the last sentence of your first paragraph?