Escape From The Matrix By Writer Burak

Nowadays, there are many people who are addictive to technology very much, especially some social networks, like Facebook. An article from World Academy of Science, Engineering, and Technology shows that, “Facebook has become an essential part of many people’s lives. Surveys have shown that 71.2% of Internet users in the U.S. are also Facebook users, and that almost adolescents check Facebook first thing in the morning. Facebook ranked first in a survey of the 100 most popular websites in Taiwan. Nearly 90% of the Facebook population is made up of students, particularly university students”. At the same time, we have to notice that technology brings us a lot of fun. For example, communication has been made easier and the Internet has brought email and chatting facilities. Instead of sending letters to respective destinations, it is very easy to send an e-mail, which will be received instantly. New technology makes people to contact each other easily. If you are very busy and have no time to see your parents, you can call them or text them anytime, even during the 10 minutes break of the meeting. If you go to other country to study or work, and get far from your friends, you can have Internet video with them, in this way you can see them easily. All of those I said are the benefits and convenience that new technology bring us. In this way, technology makes people get closer, but not be alone. Without new technology, people have to see each other face to face or

Technology has helped connect people and created friendships that without technology couldn’t happen. A big way for people to connect with each other is by using social media like Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram. Facebook connects more of us to more of our friends and family than we have ever been connected before (Document 2). Every "Like, every Share, every comment is a way for us to renew on a tiny scale our connections with our friends (Document 2). Our phones are devices that can connect us to anyone around the world in the matter of seconds (Document 5). Technology is not only connecting us with other people it is also connecting us to more information.

Often heralded as the world’s greatest nation, the United States is also considered home to the world’s greatest authors. Reputable authors such as Fitzgerald, Twain, and Steinbeck remain relevant even through the washing waves of time. One such timeless author, Ray Bradbury, ventured the hazardous path of taboo to write of change. Through his novels of innocent youths evolving into children enlightened beyond their years, Bradbury utilizes the motif of time, innocence, and the philosophical movements of existentialism, transcendentalism, and romanticism to describe catastrophic events the American culture could face if existing destitute judgments continue to prevail. Ray Bradbury dared to reveal his voice.

“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how we do it” (Qualman, n.d). According to Merrain Webster 1828, “social media is form of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messaging, and other online (such as video). Technology has involved into something that everyone can utilize effectively just by the swipe of finger or by pressing a single button. We don’t have to go the post office for hand written letter from families and friends abroad, but we can get them through simply opening a chat box online. However, social media has become the addiction to many young people today and even adults alike. We eat with your phones. We study and communicate with others on your various devices. We even go into the bathroom with our devices to ensure that we don’t miss a tweet, recent Instagram post or a WhatsApp message.

Within Jenna Wortham's article, "Turn Off the Phone (and the Tension)," Wortham discusses the impact that social media possesses, in which Wortham believes that technology is responsible for shaping people's lives negatively. From Wortham's previous experiences, she shares a moment in her life that made her realize that people often compare their lives to others excessively- one of the reasons why people have social media attachment issues. Wortham also expresses how social media users brag about their lives being better than others through exaggerated posts- something that shouldn't be encouraged. With effort to resolve this issue, Wortham considers and suggests Mr. Hofmann's advice to readers: go screenless for a certain

A recent study published in 2016 by a team of researchers found that in a survey of 1,787 adults, ages 19-32 there was a “strong and significant association between social media use and depression in a nationally representative sample of U.S. young adults” (Lindsey et al.). This is not the first study to confirm the hypothesis that social media use causes depression, but it is the most recent and largest study to date and it confirms the findings of other smaller studies done. Perhaps social media makes lonely people less lonely by allowing them to easily meet new people or rekindle old social bonds. However, a study lead by social psychologist Robert Kraut on depression and internet use found that users who were introverted were more likely to feel depressed and lonely using the internet that extroverted internet users (49-74). Social media has even given way to a new term, FOMO…or the fear of missing out which users can experience as they peruse Facebook. Not only does the internet hardwire us for depression, but its driving content can make us feel more lonely or

Technology today is more relied upon than ever before. If one needs to call someone half way around the world, simply take out a cell phone and dial their number. Within thirty seconds, one can be speaking to that person just as if two people were conversing face-to-face. In the same manner, one has access to endless knowledge and resources by the pushing of a few buttons or the click of a mouse. The usage of social media today is becoming more prevalent than ever before because of the convenience it offers. This convenience includes being able to instantly know where a person is, what they are doing, and how they are feeling. All of these instances have one main commonality : technology. The interminable technological advances one has

With this type of mindset, you are so focused in making connections with other people, that you ironically separate yourself by trying to know what everyone is doing and imagine we are at all these places. While this is not a realistic possibility no matter what form of technology we have, being able to view all this information in one place has deceived society into spending its time receiving information about life, instead of actually experiencing it for themselves. Social networking is another prime example of an attention grabbing technology. You can learn about all the information on your friend’s activities in one place any time you feel like it. While it is extremely useful to be able to be able to do this, connective technology is only truly beneficial if you are able to use it as a device to interact in person. Unfortunately, the intensity of this addictive isolation can be multiplied when a person is being controlled by more than one form of digital technology. This can lead to living a life where you are never in the present moment or as Samuels puts it, “If you're routinely using three screens at once, distraction can feel like a way of life”

A few years ago, the New York Times published a moving piece rightly called, Turn Off the Phone (and the Tension) by Jenna Wortham. Wortham called on many who had spoken on the topic of technology creating a successful piece urging people to put down the technology and embrace the world around them. Wortham opens with a personal anecdote about a time she went without her phone using it to drive her fist big point that for many smartphones and their counterpart social media act like “appendages they are rarely without” Wortham continues explaining the impacts they have on us “swaying our moods, decisions and feelings. Wortham then empathizes the tension this can cause users but encourages the reader that it is “possible to move beyond the angst that social media can provoke – and to be glad that we’ve done so.” Wortham then uses this as a seamless transition to bring up two very different phenomenon’s “Joy of Missing Out” (JOMO) and “Fear of Missing Out” (FOMO). JOMO or “Joy of Missing Out” is a phenomenon explained by Anil Dash this is the idea of moving past technology and being happy about it. FOMO or Fear of missing out is the opposite of the tension we feel from technology because technology and social media show all people are

The rapid growth of technology in our society has become more dominant than it was in the 17th and 18th century. Today, technology is used for almost everything in our day to day lives. But the most common usage of technology is for communication and industrialization. However, every good thing has its disadvantage if it is over used, and since technology has become very dominant, it is used by both young and older people but more predominant among the youth of the today. Even more, technology has brought about social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, my space, piazza.com, instagram, tango, and last but not the least texting. According to socialnetworking.procon.org, “47% of American adults used social networking sites like

The most genuine complication of social media is addiction. A reporter on Salem health characterized that text messaging is no longer the biggest teenage obsession, and enormous phone bills from lengthy phone calls are no longer the biggest doubts for parents. These teenage addictions still remain, but in our generation and in analogy to the Facebook mania, it’s quite insignificant. Facebook addiction is advised to be a disorder driven by a craving. Not being able to access Facebook creates anxiety among fanatics. It is one of the most prominent social networking sites and has over one billion users without exception. People detach themselves from family and friends. Further symptoms of Facebook addiction have been related with needy sleep patterns. Researchers have also attempted to evaluate certain personality traits to the obsession. Being in touch with friends and family might clarify the logic why people are unreasonably obsessed.

In today’s society almost every individual has some type of social media, whether it is Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, or Twitter, People have accustomed to utilizing these types of social media and it has become part of their life and daily use. According to the essay “Students Addicted to Social Media” by the International Center for Media and Public Agenda, the study from the University of Maryland claims “American college students today are addicted to media” (Signs of Life in the USA 403). The university discovered that when these students are restricted from using media it is similar in terms of drug and alcohol addictions. During the study that the university conducted, students discuss how boring it is without media and how it gives them anxiety about not receiving information through social media. Other students claimed that texting and IM'ing gives them comfort and if they do not have these items then they feel alone and isolated from the world ( Signs of Life in the USA 404). Students are not the only ones who have an addiction of media but also parents and non-students. However, the International Center is accurate in some aspects and the responses students gave are very relatable which some people can agree with.

Most of us use social media to communicate with our family, friends and our loved once. Since almost all of my friends live 8000 mile away, I use Facebook, Instagram, and viber to keep in touch with them. Bur recently I started noticing it has become more than a means of communication. I start posting a picture and obsesses about how many likes I get, checking other peoples Facebook just to see if they have more friends than me, believing every post without questioning if it’s a fact and funny enough I start sending friend request for people I don’t even know. Christine Rosen, a senior editor of the New Atlantis and resident fellow at the Ethics and Public policy Center in Wessington, D.C. on “In the Beginning Was the World”, she wrote how technology is affecting the society’s critical reading ability. Peggy Orenstein, an author and a contributing writer for the New York Times, on “I Tweet, Therefore I Am” she talks about how social media is distracting as from fully live in the moment. Even though the development of technology have increased the quality of life, it also brought undeniable challenges to our society. The constant use of social media and internet has increase society attention-seeking, Distracted, and decries critical reading. The use of social media has increased dramatically throughout the years.

As technology progress, humans evolve to the advanced technology and enhance our lives via technology. We connect to our families, friends and others through social media such as Facebook. Social media takes up a huge part in our lives. Social media infest us with information that are relevant and irrelevant to us. Marry Marrow wrote, “It was Facebook that changed the face of e-communication; in fact, it was the first electronic social media” (para 1). She assumes that Facebook is playing a huge role in electronic communication. In the journalist Maria Konnikova, “How Facebook makes us unhappy?”, Konnikova divulges many aspects of people on social media through researching and experience, and finds how social makes us unhappy. I agree with Konnikova findings after reading her article. In addition, she concludes that if you are engaged, active, and creative you will not sorrowful on Social media, however if you are passively browsing and defuse to engage, you will be depressed.

Our lives seem to be more and more consumed by technology as great advances in this area have continue to be made, especially when it comes to social media. Many researchers have begun to notice that depending on how much time individuals spend on these social media sites, they can negatively affect their daily lifestyle in very significant ways.  For example, social networking has become a huge distraction for students and it can affect their grades depending on how often they check their various accounts while doing class work.  Researchers have also come to find out that social media can contribute to the development of psychological symptoms