Anti-Social Media
Sydney Kovach
DH
2/8/2015
The purpose of Social media is to increase interaction with friends and family by making it possible at all times and places of the day. However, it could actually be doing the opposite. This new revolution meant for increasing socialization and opinion sharing is actually creating a generation of media reliant children that are extremely reluctant in using their face- to face skills. The ease, convenience and speed of social media may seem like good things at the moment but is actually allowing people to become shyer and shyer. When kids access their favorite social media site they are being given access to communicating with their peers from an environment in which they feel comfortable in. When chatting through a computer teens are able to eliminate stuttering, blushing, loss of words, and more awkward side effects that make up every day conversation. Their true reaction is held secret, and what they send as a response can be formulated to make them seem as calm and cool as they wish to be. When given this much control over their response times and methods it creates another world for teens that seems to be much more convenient and beneficial than face to face interaction.
These same children are now growing up with cellphones and Facebook accounts over friendship and playing outside. a recent study performed by the International Center for Media & the Public Agenda. Shows that teens and children spend 55% of their lives with their eyes on some sort of screen. This extreme majority of time once spent making valuable human relationships and discovering life lessons is now spent behind an internet identity depleting children of social skills. This is causing these children to become more dependent on their internet accounts than in raw human relationships. A child may have 100 or more followers on a certain site and still feel that they have no friends. This creates a constant cycle of posting and liking, all using up more and more of the child’s time. Kids now place more importance on recording and event and proving to their followers that they had a good time than actually having a good time. The numbers of likes and followers behind each person has become a part of their identity, the more the better. Teens and children may feel incompetent and disliked when they don’t receive as many likes or followers as their peers and may resort to drastic actions to gain them.
Not only does social media allow adolescences to post only the good moments of their life sparking jealousy and competition in others it also creates a buffer in which teens think that they can say whatever they want. With the involuntary human reactions taken away behind each emotions, teens feel freer in saying whatever comes to their mind. An online argument allows longer time to think of rude and hurtful comments, and the confidence to say these comments as they are as fierce as they are typed out. While in face to face conversation an angry person may become flustered, mix up words and devalue their argument, online people can seem as clear headed, confident and witty as they want to seem. Combining both of these false online fronts can make for disastrous effects. When arguing in real life an individual may know when to back down due to the reaction of the person that they are arguing with, but while online they have no indication of this person’s true reaction, causing the argument to escalate to much more long an intense than it originally would have been.
Overall social media is a social burden, creating a generation of awkward and naïve teenagers scared of genuine human interaction. The time wasted away each day on social media by teens trying to prove themselves and measure up to others is time in which they could be bettering their academic, social or physical life. The seeming convenience behind the online “mask” or “buffer” is something that will come back and effect teens negatively when faced with real life encounters and confrontations in their day to day activities. By learning to lessen their use of social media and allowing themselves to understand the dynamics and importance of human relations and interactions adolescences can lessen the dramatic toll that the internet epidemic has taken on their generation.
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Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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Hi, you make a lot of interesting points in your argumentative essay.
I agree with basically all of them, however I guess depending on the individual the effects of social media can vary.
Your structure was really good, and punctuation and grammar pretty decent as well. Although, there were a few errors, but you can find them on your own since you aren't a five-year old child who has only just started learning how to read or write.
Overall you made some excellent points which backed up your argument perfectly. Nice job.
This is not a good hook. Instead of defining social media in your subjective view you should start with something fascinating. We won't retain any information if it is not interesting.
Also, this is not the only purpose of social media; what about connecting the world?
You're doing this essay thing all wrong- when you bring this up it should immediately provide facts, statistics, generational gap analysis. Frankly a whole essay-no book- could be made to prove this. If you plan to leave it for now and come back to it then it's redundant. Instead in the intro ask questions for us to reflect on. There is multiple ways you could go about it but this way has you deficit in the credibility category-we are skeptical intil you prove it. I don't believe it and until you prove it to me I will be dismissive of everything you say after it. It is human to do so; to by skeptical. Play into that and show us how you thought and analyzed it in a better way then we have and then your essay will be responsive.
If you're talking about out deficit to read human emotions, to respond to people the word is not shy. Shy is something completely different and to have it in an essay it couldn't possibly make any sense because the science community is still debating on what an emotion is. So you saying this before explaining how you came up with it means your credibility is further lowered.
Completely and utterly subjective.
Not a sentence.
Why? How? Where is the science? The proof? What makes this anything other then your opinion? How will you change anyone's mind when you give them no incite.
...not even reading the body...
you proved none of this. This is a view of a generational gap but you gave us absolutely no incite. If you had the incite would be ignored because of your closed minded viewpoint. Where is your rebuttal?
Your lack of a hook makes this boring and uninteresting. That means while you are writing all of this it goes in one ear and out the other. Wasted. You're paragraphs are too long which in return have the same affect. And don't make this about peoples attention span being in a deficit or any other validation to having such huge paragraphs; the need for relevant attention grabbing material frequently is an absolute must based on brain biology.
I suggest you start over; re-write, take you opinion out of it and analyse the issue to a point where we come up with the conclusion. Prove it, you have yet to do that with any of your opinions.
I disagree with the stance overall but some of these points actually do make a great deal of sense, especially the one about the "mask". I might come back and review properly when I've had a chance to think about it.
Big Picture:
I enjoy this piece. It’s quite well written, you state your points, provide evidence, and relay information in an understandable way.
Details:
“are being given access to communicating with their peers from an environment in which they feel comfortable in”
You don’t need to repeat “in” here, so I’d take out the second one.
“he Public Agenda. Shows”
This is part of the same sentence. No period, no capital.
“This extreme majority of time once spent making valuable human relationships and discovering life lessons is now spent behind an internet identity depleting children of social skills.”
I’m not sure that you’ve demonstrated that life lessons aren’t learnable in this environment. The bigger issue here is that you're misusing the statistic. Al that time isn't being spent on facebook, it could be gaming, watching documentaries, going to the movies, writing essays, or even spending time on YWS! Because most of your argument is about social media like facebook, it might be seen as misleading not to signpost that that your statistic refers to a wider brand of behaviour "watching screens".
“The numbers of likes and followers behind each person has become a part of their identity, the more the better. Teens and children may feel incompetent and disliked when they don’t receive as many likes or followers as their peers and may resort to drastic actions to gain them.”
This was another good point. I feel like “drastic actions” is a bit general though. You could potentially use examples, like teens posting inappropriate content (there have been issues with teens being arrested for posting nude or semi-nude photos of themselves and others, and the question of when this constitutes child pornography). But yes, another good point.
“allow adolescences”
adolescents
With the involuntary human reactions taken away behind each emotions,
When arguing in real life an individual may know when to back down due to the reaction of the person that they are arguing with, but while online they have no indication of this person’s true reaction, causing the argument to escalate to much more long an intense than it originally would have been.
A very good point, but the phrasing at the end “to much more long an intense than ” should probably be “in length and intensity in comparison to what”
“The seeming convenience”
The apparent convenience
“and effect teens negatively”
Classic affect/effect confusion. Gets the best of us
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Cheers.