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Tiera Davis
English 114B
Wafa Azeem
2/11/15
Controversy of the Web
Our society has advanced tremendously as the years passed with the help of technology.
Thanks to the web we now have social media. Although William Deresiewicz believes our
communication skills have dropped tremendously due to social media, I believe it has improved
our communication because we are now able to talk to others through chat within minutes, get in
touch with old friends/family members, and meet new people. Most teens are inseparable from
their social media, but that’s only because that’s how we keep in contact with our friends and the
rest of the world.
When thinking of what a friend do I think of someone that I talk to on social media, but
even more in person or on the phone on a daily basis. There is a difference from a “friend” on
Facebook and a true friend in life, but some of your Facebook friends can be true friends of
yours and vice versa. A Facebook friend can be family members, co-workers, or even people
you have only talked to once because of mutual friends or you just simply had a class with them.
Whereas, a real friend will call you up at any time of the day and tell you the full story of
whatever happened; unlike writing a post only telling half the story because you want to see if
others agree with you or if you just don’t want everyone to know the full story. This does not
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only happen on social media though. It happens every day when we’re out. So why should we
try to make it seem like a bad thing when it is done online. It’s just like if someone you are not
close to asks, “How have you been?” Of course we are not going to tell them every little detail
we’ll just give them the gist, much like Facebook posts. William Deresiewicz leaves us with a
question, “if we have 768 “friends” in what sense do we have any” (48). By having that many
friends it suggests you are not a complete anti-social person; which if I would say so myself is a
good thing. The “friends” listed on our Facebooks are people that we have talked to at least once
in our lives. By having a Facebook it just allows you to see the difference from people you only
talk to for the fun of it and the people who will remain your friend for a lifetime. This is not a
bad thing though. By knowing so many people and keeping in contact even if it is just reading
one of their posts that can benefit you in the future.
When I was in elementary I had a best friend; her name is Jasmine. After our fifth grade
culmination we never saw each other, but we did keep in contact by using Myspace and as time
went on and new social media were made we kept adding each other on those. Middle school
and High school went by and we never saw each other; all we did was talk every now and then.
The only reason we did talk though was when we got an alert from our social media that told us
it was one of our birthdays. Or if we agreed on a status and just had to say something. In fact that
is how I found out that she lived near me when I moved out to the Valley for college. We were
able to meet up and start hanging out again thanks to Instagram because she put up a picture
saying she was near CSUN. For a person like me this was great because I’m not so good at
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meeting new friends. If it wasn’t for social media then we would have never seen each other
again because we wouldn’t have even known how to get in contact. Yes we have phones, but
over time phone numbers change all the time. The only thing that remains the same is our social
media and that’s something the older generations need to realize because most of them view
anything on the web as bad.
Digital immigrants might see social media as a bad thing only because it is something
new to them and they do not fully understand it. When they do finally come to the conclusion
that it’s just like texting except you can find people easier and express your thoughts they do
start to like it. For example, when I was younger my mom was totally against Myspace because
she would hear stories of grown men faking their identities to talk to young girls. As time passed
and Myspace got old a new social media was brought about called Facebook. For some reason
my mom was now interested in signing up. When she saw how many of her family members and
old high school friends were on Facebook she was addicted immediately. Thanks to Facebook
she get to keep in touch with all of her old friends as well as family members that live far away.
Facebook has helped me feel like I know my family members because I do not get to see
them too often. They post what they’ve been up to and recent pictures of themselves. It is like an
update without having to waste too much time out of your day to call them up on the phone. If
we did not have Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. then we would not be able to keep in touch
with everyone as easily. Social Media can also be used for business. According to an article I
read called, “Public Displays Of Connection” by Judith Donath and Danah Boyd, “They are
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sources of emotional and financial support, and of information about jobs, other people, and the
world at large” (30). We are now able to sit at home and hear about as well as take action to the
different things going on in the world without even trying much.
Before the internet got as big as it is now we mostly relied on writing letters and making
phone calls. Now chat has become more popular because you can talk back and forth so fast and
it can be done anywhere at any time. You can be sitting in class or at your job working and can
still talk to the outside world without getting caught. This tool is amazing because it is free for
the most part. To make a phone call to someone that lives far would increase your phone bill so
it would make it less likely to make that phone call. Even mailing a letter cost money and more
importantly just takes far too long. By just being able to pick up a phone and type to anyone in
the world using any chat on a social media is outright amazing.
Social media has helped people that are too shy to talk in person find another world
where they can be themselves and meet plenty of new people at a very fast pace. We now have
all kinds of dating sites to meet the “perfect match.” We are able to meet hundreds of people a
day on the different social Medias. When surfing the net it broadens your chances of finding that
one person in the world that is really “the one.” My friend’s mother found her husband on an
online dating site and they have been together for years now. The web is not only used for dating
though; it can also be a great tool to find friends or just someone to talk to because you have
similar likes and dislikes. My roommate use friendly chat sites to meet people. She has a
muscular disease so she is in a wheelchair. Not many people try to be her friend so she uses the
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chat sites to find people that will like her for who she truly is and actually get to know her.
Which I think is a great thing that she can search for someone that likes what she likes because
your profile states all of your interests and hobbies. It just makes it easier to distinguish who you
would like to be your friend and who you would not want to be associated with. It also gives you
multiple people to talk to at one time.
Without social media I believe the world would be a lot more boring. It would be boring
because most of my day consists of me looking at my Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook. So
without it I would not know what to do with myself. John Palfrey states in an article, “The
teenage girl with the Ipod, sitting across from you on the subway, frenetically typing messages
into her phone” (1). Everyone is on their phones 24/7 now days. Also I do not think young
people would know what is going on around the world. From experience I’ve noticed not many
young people watch the news, including myself. Even though we do not watch the news we still
see news all down our feeds on the different social medias’ we have. We get the chance to
discuss how we feel with others around the world. We are given the chance to see the multiple
different sides that a story can have.
The web has progressed so much since it was first invented. In the beginning it was just
used to find new information or even just old information that we did not know about before.
Over the years we have advanced slowly, year by year. There is now so much that we can do that
we could not before. Creating websites to allow people to keep in contact with one another is the
best thing the web could have come up with. Social media allows us to discuss topics around the
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world and find out who we really are. So overall I would have to say our communication with
the world has enhanced as a whole.
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Works Cited
Boyd, Donath. “Excerpt From Public Displays of Connection.” 29-46
Deresiewicz, William. “Faux Friendship.” 47-60
Paffery, John. “Excerpt from Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital
Natives.” 7-22