Maria Alejandra Corchuelo
ENGL 101
04.17.2014
Broken Friendships
There are certain bonds created in life that can be natural as blood, and others
created by choice like friendship. Since the appearance of social networking sites the
concept of friendship has been redefine. In the article “Faux Friendship” written by William
Deresiewicz through a detail look into the past of the concept of friendship the author
highlights the fact that being a friend doesn’t mean the same anymore since the appearance
of these sites. The main cause is we letting the development of social networking sites take
control of our lives. Social networking sites have the ability to make us vulnerable to the
point where it’s hard for us to communicate face to face, bringing consequences where for
us to be able to identify ourselves or someone else we need a computer not a mirror.
From ancient times, as shown by Deresiewicz, friendship was “rare, precious and
hard-won”(471) and when Christianity came along, the ideal about friendship changed
since we were expected to live and respect God. But then with the appearance of
Renaissance the classical notion of friendship was revived where truth and virtue came
above all. It didn’t take a long time for technology and modernization to take control and to
push humanity to a point where as Sherry Turkle states in her TED talk: “The illusion of
companionship without the demand of friendship.” We don’t take the time anymore to give
a card handwritten, or to have a nice gesture if it doesn’t imply the use of a device. Our
ability to communicate has been shortening, we have become afraid of human contact, if
we are afraid of our own race, how can we overcome other obstacles that live will bring
such as economic failure or natural disasters. At the end we haven’t been able to realize that
we just have each other. With the appearance of technology it has become common that a
text it’s enough to express a feeling and even to fall in love. We have developed the ability
to think that by receiving “likes” of Facebook is the same as receiving a hug.
Communication is broken between each other; it doesn’t matter in how long is your email,
your text, or your post on a Facebook page, the message will never be the same.
Friends are the main source of power for humans being. When we become part of
this world we don’t have the chance to choose the people we life with, but while time
passes by we have the chance to choose the friends we want to be surrounded by. The only
problem we find in the creation of friendship is the definition we give to it. Friendship, as
shown in the Deresiweicz article is a relationship that doesn’t involve fixed commitments,
“we can friends with whomever we want, however we want, for as long as we want.”(Page
473) Friends are a central in our life’s because as also highlighted in the article, children
and even adults tend to reach for their friends when something is not turning out as
planned. Friends are our plan b when we need something, but it seems that we cant tell who
are our “real” friends anymore. The amounts of people we have accepted friend requests on
Facebook are now call our “friends”. We are social circle has expanded that it doesn’t have
boundaries. Our expectations have changed. It came as Turkle said: “We expect more from
technology and less from each other.” Social Networking sites have everything we were
looking on the outside. For example, kids find game online, music, friend, love, and
movies, among a lot of other things. Kids don’t feel the need to play outside their houses
anymore. We are becoming sedentary, and that doesn’t bring just psychological problems,
but also it can bring diseases.
Another thing that is primarily important is the lost of privacy. Anyone, in any place
in the entire globe, can know everything about us. And even though they might not know
our past and what brought us or help us build who we are nowadays, the selected
information shown online seems to be enough. “We’re lonely but we’re afraid of intimacy”
(Turkley) we feel lonely because when it comes to an important moment of our life’s we
realize we do need someone in front of us showing and demonstrating that real friends
exists, but when we face the moment where we have to build intimacy we are afraid and go
back to our dark world created by technology. Our identity is being reshaped since we don’t
have the chance to define ourselves anymore. For example, when you want to know what
someone knows about you, you have to look on what is on online, and then you’ll know
how people think of you. Children don’t have developed critical thinking therefor; they
don’t notice the harm it’s causing to their life and the fact that they are basing their lives on
social networks and technology. Adults are responsible of letting children know their
mistake. Turkley says: “If we don’t teach our children to be alone, they will only know how
to be lonely.” When we are growing old, and creating ourselves, we have to live sometime
in solitude, that way it will be easier to find ourselves without the influence of any other
force. We need to spread the idea that what matters is quality not quantity. Priorities in life
change, and because of that they could change back, we just have to acknowledge that it’s
not up to technology, it’s up to us. We have to take back the control of our lives.
Dear Alejandra,
After reading your essay, I like how you introduce the topic that you’re trying to
argue in this paper. A very general idea and you bring it your main argument at the end.
The introduction is well structure, but it kind of missing the synthesis of the readings and
the TED talk. You might want to be more specific on your thesis statement. I understand
what you’re trying to proof, but it’s still a little vague in the thesis.
All the quotes that you included in your essay are very strong and very supportive.
You should explain the quote a little more because when I read one of the quotes, I couldn’t
find the explanation as to why this quote is important to your main claim. There’s one
“naked quote” that you need to introduce it before giving the quote.
The transition from paragraph to paragraph is not clear because from the end of 3rd
paragraph to the 4th paragraph, there is no connection at all. You ended the 3rd paragraph
with diseases, but on the next paragraph you talked about privacy. Make some connection
between paragraphs to allow your essay to transit more smoothly. I understood your
message, but your ideas are every so it make it harder for readers follow. Other than that, I
like your essay because I got to get a glimpse of what technology is doing to our society.
However, you might want to explain HOW and WHY technologies prevent people from
communicating face to face. I felt as though you only touched base on the question that it
asked about social networking. You answered most of the listed questions thoroughly, but
you had neglect the most important question that is in bold.
Sincerely,
Cindy