Analysis Of Limits Of Friendship By Maria Konnikova

Social media and technology has improved the ability to stay connected with each other from far distances. In the article “Text or Talk: Is Technology Making You Lonely? By Margie Warrell” the author states “ online technology is a magnificent tool for staying in touch with people across miles time zones and years.” In

In the last ten to fifteen years accompanying the dawn of social media, means of communication among friends and strangers have been easier than ever. Since its creation in 2004, Facebook has grown into the largest social media site on the Internet with 30 million users and counting. The ability to catch up with former high school friends who are now across the country or see how an aunt in Pittsburgh has been doing since the birth of her son are now as simple as the click of a mouse. However, the amount of “friends” acquired on social media may not be an accurate reflection of how many close relationships one truly shares. In an article from Bigthink.com titled “Do You Have Too Many Facebook Friends?”, Steven Mazie gathers research from Pew Research Center about statistics surrounding Facebook

In “The Limits of Friendship” by Maria Konnikova, social media has significantly changed the way we interact with friends and family. Everybody thinks that using social media is the best way to talk to friends and family, however, in my opinion, they are wrong because it doesn’t give you the face-to-face connections we need as humans for social interaction. On the other hand, the great thing about using social media is you can connect with more people, but in a superficial kind of way. Therefore, we do not get the face-to-face interactions with our friends and family. We, the people that are addicted to social media, learn that without face-to-face conversations we wouldn’t have a normal “social” life outside of social media. The question

Maria Konnikova's essay "The Limits of Friendship," analyzes the impact of social media on close relationships, addressing the people impacted by social media use. This essay published in The New Yorker, a weekly magazine with scholarly authors, to inform the public on social media's impact on our lives. She finds that social media has created a dependency on technology and online interactions. Konnikova strives to inform that social media is decreasing close relationships, and persuades that it will impact our future. She argues on the impact of increased dependency on social media on the Dunbar number, hindering the development of future generations. Konnikova succeeds using strong logic and scientific reason as well as appealing to emotions; however, she fails to prove her credibility over the topic and instead relies on the credibility of Robin Dunbar.

Adjetives to define friendship, as trust, caring, kindness, or compassion have been replaced by “likes”, and being “on call” as Turkle defines the way people is attached to their smart phones waiting for somebody who needs a comment or a like. Maintaining friendship now is not a question of conversation face to face, or a call, instead is a text message, a message that should be short and edited. People consider that this way or interaction is more efficient and less emotional than a real more demanding conversation. The author sustains that we are moving from friendship to a sense of

However, with the expansion of social media, many argue that the word “friend” has lost its meaning. Social media “friends” may, in reality, just be acquaintances added to social media lists order to appear popular. Even as many Americans spend time and energy developing

Social media has become one of the greatest developments of human technology history. In today’s society, human are surrounding by the social media and wireless devices. In Shannon Matesky’s spoken word poem “MySpace”, the poet explains “physical contact is more important than our number of contacts” (Matesky). According to the poet, Shannon Matesky successfully redefines the word “Myspace” from a formal definition of “the distance from other people or things that a person needs in order to remain comfortable” (Merriam-Webster), to an operational definition of the contact created on the social media. People now forget how to stay with face-to-face relationship, social media become the new way of communication. “We can’t deal with the face-to-face so we let technology replace the space that people are supposed to fill”(Matesky), said Matesky, we are losing the ability to connect each individual face to face, and socially connection has been taking over through social media by using technologic device. Shannon Matesky has successfully redefined the actual meaning of “Myspace” from the distance between two to the space one’s create on the social media. MySpace no longer refers to distance between two, but to

Humans are social creatures who need and want to communicate with one another, and technology helps fulfill that need. Although technology, specifically texting and social media, has risen question to whether technology is killing our friendships. Though many believe that technology is tearing our friendships apart, it is actually strengthening them and keeping us closer together than ever before. Through technology, people have the power to stay in touch with friends all over the world, create new friendships with people who share similar interests, and feel closer to the friends we already have.

Konnikova uses data gathered by scientists to show that as focus turns toward online friendships, people start to lose the number of meaningful real life relationships that they once had. She references the Dunbar number frequently. There are multiple stages to the Dunbar number but the largest is around one hundred and fifty. She defines this as, “people we call casual friends—the people, say, you’d invite to a large party” (236). This number was seen as the max number of friendships that someone could maintain. However, with social media, people have hundreds of friends. As people expand their range of friends, it is believed that they will lose time to interact with their real tangible friends. From this point of view it is viewed as a bad change.

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

With the rapid growth of social media it is becoming very effortless to determine the type of characteristics someone holds based off of what they post and with whom they interact with. In Maria Konnikova’s The Limits Of Friendship, she furthers her readers knowledge about the use of social media and why it is important for organizations to have them. Generally, every person and organization obtain some form of a social media account that outlines what values they promote. Make A Wish Foundation is a very prominent worldwide organization which enhances the lives of sick children with serious conditions by giving them a wish. Looking over their twitter will give a great insight on how they enrich everyday lives by posting tweets and photos which also display the ambition and size of this organization which makes that possible. Make A Wish promotes giving happiness and a sense of life to an unfortunate child in an attempt to have its organizational values support it’s name.

Behind every relationship, there lies a much more complex scientific explanation of the number of friends one has. The Dunbar Number is the suggested limit to the number of individuals one can carry a secure relationship with. Accordingly, this number is one hundred and fifty relationships, where a person knows and appreciates every other person in this circle and how they relate to each other within the circle. Although social media can acquaint one to individuals from a wide range of communities, it does not have the capabilities of forming meaningful relationships, causing a limit to the number of connections one can have. Nevertheless, the number was around in the past, is relevant today, and will still be prevalent in the future. While

The emergence of new communication tools such as phones, televisions, and computers along with internet are constantly changing the way people live and communicate. Many new information technology, especially the internet, pulled distance between people closer because human communication will no longer be constrained by time and space. People can talk through the internet or participate in online discussion group at every corner of the world; thus, enhanced human social connections. However, this is not what every human believes. People who opposed these thinking tend to believe that the internet is what lead to human outliers – isolated -- since people spend daily social activities times on the internet. 人们已把网络科技当做是自己不可少的一部分。所以有人失去了面对面交流的能力。

Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Instagram, and Flicker was invented to keep us in touch and keep us closer to our family and friends. But according to How Facebook ruins Friendships “we took our friendship online” (Bernstein). First we began communicating more by email than by phone and then switched to instant messaging or texting. By joining social Medias online

Social media improves the way people communicate with others. It allows them to meet new people. At the click of a button, millions of strangers all over the world who would have never met otherwise are able to connect with each other. Many people believe that internet friends are not as valuable as real life friendships. However with websites like “skype” and instant messaging sites, long distance friendships can be as intimate as real life friendships because social media allows friends to see each other face to face and spend quality time together whenever they want to. Because of this, internet friendships should no longer be considered taboo and should be seen as normal human relationships, “It’s entirely possible to have hundreds of