Jared Dobbertin

Adam Padgett
English 1102
January 26, 2014
Lost in a Virtual World
Social media to me epitomizes the problems with our culture. Our society has
become obsessed with immediate gratification and thrives off sharing every minute detail
of their lives through sites like Facebook and Twitter. The common person has forgotten
how to be alone and now lives in the virtual world. We no longer yearn for time spent
detached from society in quiete solace because our culture dictates that we be up to date
on whats trending in the social realms.
My personal experience with social media isnt really anything special. I first
joined social media as a junior in high school and was very reluctant to do so; my friends
had all been on it for a while but I just never felt the need. I created my Facebook account
in order to stay up to date on my basketball teams page with all of our info on practices
and games. When I first joined, I was apprehensive to make my first post. I felt that
posting was just a time waster and only for people who didnt have anything else to do.
And at first, thats what Facebook was for me: it served as something I could do when I
was bored and wanted to procrastinate from doing homework.
Facebook slowly started playing a larger role in my life the more involved I got in
school. Basketball continued posting information via Facebook and other clubs I was in
actually started interacting solely through Facebook. One club I was in never met in
person, the administrator would just post important deadlines or forms we needed on
Comment [AP1]: Good title!
Comment [AP2]: Interestingly phrased, like
Second Life we saw in Digital Nation.
Comment [AP3]: What would a special
experience look like?
Comment [AP4]: Why didnt you feel the
need? Everyone does it.
Comment [AP5]: So you had to join whether
you wanted to or not.
Facebook, and then you were responsible for your own work. You could set up meetings
with the administrator, but she wasnt exactly the most available woman to meet up with.
In this case, I felt that social media was a great resource for larger groups that
couldnt always have set meetings because of so many conflicting schedules since almost
everyone has Facebook available to them at the tip of their fingers. At the same time
though, I started noticing that the push to social media for meetings wasnt the most
efficient. Laziness started to play a larger factor, and students began seeing the
information on the page as being less important almost since they werent given it in
person. People would ignore deadlines and just assume they were tentative, and
eventually I saw no reason to stay associated.
In todays society, friendships are held online. People think that you can keep up
with friendships through implicit connections, but this has lead to the devaluing of
friendships. The word friend carries less meaning now since anyone youre associated
with on Facebook is your friend. People you may not even know may be in your
friends list, but some people still look at the overall number on that list and see that they
have 600 friends and feel more secure about themselves. Society tells us that we have to
be liked; what it doesnt say is by how many people and to what extent. We see
celebrities and envy them because society dictates that theyre happier than us. With
social media so easily accessible, people have gotten lost in who they really are and just
see what they want to be.
One of the larger problems I see with social media is that there are no age
restrictions. My nine- year old brother has started using Facebook and his future
employer will eventually decide whether he gets hired or not based on everything he has
Comment [AP6]: Be careful using the
second person. This can be jarring for readers.
Try to avoid you for this reason, whenever
possible.
Comment [AP7]: Okay, this is an interesting
observation. So do you think information loses
its importance once it becomes
electronic/digital? This could be a very
interesting question to ask (inquiry).
Comment [AP8]: This is all very nicely
phrased and I certainly agree with some of
these assertions.
Comment [AP9]: This is an interesting idea
too: perception of the famous. But is this a new
idea brought about by social media or has it
existed before had? I think of Americas
Funniest Home Videos as Youtube before
there was a Youtube.
posted. The common person doesnt understand that what you post will have an effect on
our life and portrays you as a person. Since so many people have friends online that they
dont really know, what you post may be the only impression they have of you. If youre
constantly posting pictures of you being hammered, your friends will take notice along
with your future employers. Our society has become more outspoken but at the same time
wants to take less responsibility for their actions since social media has served as a way
for people to hide from public speaking.
Questions
1. What changes can be made to social medias to eliminate the cyber bullying and
false portrayals of a persons persona?
2. How young is too young to be using social media?
3. Why does our society thrive off receiving false support through re-tweets and
likes?
I expect to focus more on the third question above. I see a lot of problems with
peoples insecurities and how they handle them. We all strive to be something that were
not even though we know that no ones perfect. Im expecting to get more opinions on
the topic and broaden my understanding of it as well.
Jared,
I think you have some really interesting ideas here. I feel like you are saying that you
arent as in to social media as, perhaps, your peers, but I dont really get an idea of how
plugged in you either are or arent. I think what you have to say about how we value
information once it becomes digitized is really interesting. I think you could expand this
conversation to include the ephemeral nature of online communication. I think Im
Comment [AP10]: Who is the common
person? What do you mean by this?
Comment [AP11]: Interesting word choice
here, can you use more specific (more
academic) word choice?
Comment [AP12]: This is an interesting idea
here. reminds me of really nasty youtube
comments that people make anonymously. One
questions could be: how has social media
affected discourse?
Comment [AP13]: Interesting, seems to be
the question youre most interested in. Like I
said before, youll have to explain more of
what you mean by false
Comment [AP14]: Okay, but where might
you find these other opinions?
talking about tweets and status updates: how quickly and carelessly we share information.
Im sort of just riffing off what youve just said here, but could be something to think
about. Also, I think the sharing of misinformation could be something worth
investigating. I see more and more false stories being shared on facebook as truth lately.
Most recently that story about the Russian engineer who killed himself because the last
Olympic ring didnt open (story turned out to be false). I wonder if this is more what
youre asking in that last question. Really good really interesting stuff here. email me if
you want to send me a revised question.