View
388
Download
0
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
“They look like they’re having fun…”
“That dress looks amazing on her…”
“He’s won another award?”
“Why doesn’t any of this happen to me?”
Facebook makes us lonely. The juxtaposition of snippets of real life and perusal of a virtual one isolates us.
People selectively tear pages
out of their lives and staple
them into their Facebook.
Collectively, it leaves the
viewer with a novel of life
highlights that disguise them
as day to day happenings.
Additionally, this swarm of joy from our “friends” puts a constant pressure on
us to be incredibly happy, and to be living incredible, exciting, amazing lives.
The maximum number of real relationships we can have at any time is around 150, and
yet people’s friends list regularly scale into the thousands.
The act of using Facebook itself is an antisocial one.
We scroll through our newsfeeds alone, not in groups.
We are seeing an active degradation of the quality of our relationships around us.
Facebook is now becoming the tool the loneliest among us use to futilely reach
out for connection.
An even worse byproduct is the lack of social education given to the new generations.
Growing up with Facebook initially isolates them and sets them up for a lifelong
attention addiction.
It’s not simply perusal that is causing this singularity, people who regularly
post are found to be some of the most alone people.
This plague of isolation is now
following us everywhere. In our
pockets, on our desks, the constant reminder
of what others are doing is always buzzing
in our ears.
Not only does Facebook isolate us from others but it begins to isolate us from ourselves.
We pick, choose, edit, and remix our online identities.
We morph them into whatever we think will be most accepted by our peers
rather than attempting to get to know ourselves and others better.
Facebook even spreads this loneliness past the confines of its URL.
Those absent from Facebook are seen as beyond weird and begin
to be excluded virtually and in reality.
“Staring at this screen is depressing me.”
“I bet my friends want to go out.”
“Click”
Recommended