Stephen Marche's Article : Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?

Social media, like Facebook and Twitter seems to be growing popular worldwide in the last few years. Have you found yourself or someone else in an awkward situation and instantly pull out your phone to scrawl through Facebook or Twitter just to keep from talking to someone in the elevator or doctor’s office? Is social media like Facebook and Twitter making us lonely human beings? One man, Stephen Marche, wrote “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely,” published in May of 2012 issue in The Atlantic thinks that social media might play a role in it alongside with other things.

In the article, Is Facebook Making Us Lonely by Stephen Marche, the author claims that social media makes people become lonely. Marche’s article conducted vast amounts of research to support his claim. He presented many strong points in his article about on people becoming lonely due to the effects of social media. Although this article presented data on his claim of the increasing number of people becoming isolated, this article shows irrelevant research the data doesn’t necessarily prove his statement that social media is the cause of people’s loneliness, which consequently weakens his claim. that weakens his argument because the data doesn’t proveon people becoming isolated without the use of social media. which weakens his argument.

In Stephen Marche’s article, “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” points out many reasons to which social media is making us lonely. One reason why social media is making us lonely is because we are so focused on the internet and we forget what is going on around us. Another reason is because we can see how our friends on Facebook are having a great life and we become lonely because our life is not as interesting as theirs. Even though I disagree with the author’s conclusion that social media is making us lonely, there is ample evidence to support my belief that the internet can also be a tool for communication.

Our society has evolved very much over time. The technology, has impacted it greatly. With technology in our lives, we find ourselves ‘glued’ to our electronics. Now, the question is, what does social media provide us? In Wu’s article, he states, “The devices we use change the way we live much faster than any contest among genes.” Meaning, we rely on these devices to make us happy, and resort to them when we are bored. Similarly, in Castells article, he says, “Media often report that intense use of the Internet increases the risk of isolation, alienation, and withdrawal from society.” However, the article also says that social media has actually “increased sociability, civic engagement, and the intensity of family and friendship relationships, in all cultures.” Answering the question, we actually get something out of using social media. We are allowed to communicate with

As time goes by more and more Americans are becoming socially isolated. Social isolation is when an individual distances itself from the social world. In “Social Isolation Growing in U.S., Study Says,” Shankar Vedantam argues that Americans are becoming socially isolated. I agree with Vedantam. Not being able to socialize is a big problem when an individual wants to go out into the real world. Americans need to become a united society because technology—like Facebook and Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, and cell phones—has contributed to social isolation.

In Stephen Marche’s article, Facebook is a reason people are becoming move lonely and standard. The relationship between technology and loneliness is strong. According to the article people who spend their time on devices and social network sights are finding themselves lacking in the ability to communicate in person. One effect that is brought up throughout the article is loneliness, in which is made the more often one drowns themselves in social media. Facebook in particular, is the

In “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” Marche states the following in response to the question proposed in the title of his essay: “Within this world of instant and absolute communication, unbounded by limits of time or space, we suffer from unprecedented alienation” (601). In other words, thanks to technology the world has never been smaller, and humans have never felt farther apart. Marche’s feelings about social networking, Facebook in particular, are made clear from the start. He opens his essay by vividly relaying a true story that conjures the reader’s morbid-curiosity and establishes his writing-style. At times it seems like Marche makes a sport of playing on humanity’s primal fears about loneliness, ageing, and dying, but he plays a

Social media has connected us in unimaginable ways, and introduced us to a world much larger than our humble backyards. Nowadays, nearly everyone has a Facebook, an Instagram, or a Twitter account. Grandparents, teenagers, children, and even some pets are a part of one social network or another. While websites like Facebook are great for sharing pictures, stories, and interests, but they are also capable of raising awareness about important issues that may have been overlooked. Recently, the overuse of Facebook was thought to promote negative psychology well-being, including depression and loneliness. It 's safe to say that the world has become hopelessly addicted to social media. Plenty of people can 't make it through the day or in extreme cases a few hours without popping on their computers or scrolling through their smart phones to check the newsfeed on Facebook. As Stephen Marche says in his article, "Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?”, Facebook makes us miserable and lonely. In fact, even though there is evidence showing that we 're more detached or lonely than ever because given Facebook is about social relationships; however, the site also offers an extraordinary number of ways to connect with others. This is just a taste of what Facebook can do, and with a huge number of people utilizing them, its possibilities are only growing. Facebook does not replace real human relationship or create loneliness, but it does not exterminate it either. It all depends on ones usage.

In the article “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely”, Stephen Marche discusses the effects and utility of network in people’s life. Marche establishes how Facebook is making us more isolated and replacing deep connections from society. He also established that isolation is an option in which we are blinded pushed towards by social networking. According to Marche, Facebook is a tool that people have to learn how to used because this tool becomes what people make of it. Facebook has been a media to help people meet others that are far apart but it has also turn out to be a way to lock people into solitude.

Even e-mail is now considered an outdated form of communication. For many, myself included, it has become easier to wrap a conversation by saying, "Look me up on Facebook." Director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, Sherry Turkle offers the following, "The new technologies allow us to 'dial down ' human contact, to titrate its nature and extent" (Turkle 237). Now, allow me to clarify. I do not have, nor have I ever had a Facebook account, but you will not know that until you search for me. As a contributor for The New York Times, Alice Mathias indicates, "Facebook purports to be a place for human connectivity, but it 's made us more wary of human confrontation" (Matias 230). Ms. Mathias captures the very essence of my actions. And the reason why I choose to avoid conflict and appear cordial when catching up with you. If we were being honest with each other, we would have acknowledged that neither of us have any intention of interacting again. Many people similar to myself, socially awkward and insecure, have also adapted to use these services as a social buffer. I can ask you to connect with me without actually granting you access to me. Your request to "friend me" could potentially remain in my inbox forever. And if we should ever bump into each other again, I might conveniently tell you how it must not have come through to my inbox. For me personally, I will never have to worry about any of it, something I am truly thankful for. If I had

At first, I agreed with Stephen Marche, author of “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?”, but after doing some of my own research I would like to retract my original position. We cannot blame technology for our own human condition. However Stephen Marche begs to differ. “At the forefront of all this unexpectedly lonely interactivity is Facebook, with 845 million users and $3.7 billion in revenue last year” (Marche). Stephen Marche believes Facebook is making us lonely because it is changing the dynamics of traditional friendships (Marche). He also blames Facebook for the rise in human isolation. From 1950 to 2010 a 17 percent increase in households of one were reported (Marche). Does Marche not realize that many happy Americans

Social media causes isolation because it makes people not fully engage with others. Social media has made us become more interested in our phones and computers than the real world. Many people would be more interested to interact on social media rather than interacting with others in person. As Wency Leung points out in her essay Does Social Media Bring Us Closer- or Make Us Loners, “While we are connected, we are rarely fully engaged with those immediately around us” (687). As Leung points out, we are more engage to our devices than being fully engaged with the people around us. For example, we see this all over the place like in colleges, parks, and even in your own house. Most people would prefer to engage over the phone that to be engaged in a conversation with the person in front of them.

Addiction is defined as a compulsive need for a particular obsession. When social media was created, the thought of it turning into an addiction was not a concern. In 2017, 81 percent of Americans have user profiles on social media and are expected to grow to 2.5 billion by 2018 (Statista). Although businesses are advancing through the rapid growth of social media, isolation is also advancing because many now rely on social media as a way to interact with society. Due to the increase of online users, social media is now linked to the increase in isolation. While businesses, schools, and technology are advancing an argument can be made that social media is reducing social interaction. On the flip side an argument can be made that social media increases people’s thought processes and networking skills in communities that do not only rely on proximity. Much research has been done on the increase and decrease of a person’s feelings of isolation through their use of social media.

Social media has become a huge and important part of our lives in recent years, it has become so important that it has been used in jobs and education. On the other hand, social media has also caused controversy because people have used it to express their opinions and beliefs that other people might be against. In the essay “The Loneliness of the Interconnected” the author Charles Seife explains how the Internet has caused us to isolate ourselves in our own world with ideas that support our beliefs and people who have similar values and biases.For example, Charles Seife states, “The Internet is helping us preserve our mental landscape from the weathering effects of information. We are becoming even more resistant to the effects of uncomfortable facts and ever more capable of treating them as mere noise”(Seife 292). In comparison, the essay “Inequality: Can Social Media Resolve Social Divisions?” by author Danah Boyd discusses about her experience of working with American teens where she learned how the use of social media supports many patterns of segregation in the non-virtual lives of most Americans. In the essay she states, “The Internet was believed to be a great equalizer where race and class would not matter because of the lack of visual cues, but instead the same biases that configure unmediated aspects of everyday life also shape the mediated experiences people have on the Internet”(Boyd 307). Both Charles Seife and Danah Boyd discuss the problems of isolation and

People begin to connect more and more every day with the power of social media. Whether someone is thousands of miles away or a few blocks from your house there is the possibility of finding them on social media. The question is, with all the connecting possible through social media does it make us more distant to one another? With today’s youth, social media begins to take over one’s life and become their main source of interacting. Social media is possibly one of the best and worst creations in the modern world but the cons definitely triumph over the pros.