Is Facebook Making Us Lonely By Stephen Marche

In Stephen Marche’s ”Is Facebook Making us Lonely”, the author starts with an grabbing or interesting story that made headlines about a women named Yvette Vickers. He uses this anecdote to grasp the reader’s attention. Moreover, the writer is trying to appeal to the audience about loneliness. In the text it says “Social Media-from Facebook to twitter- has made us more densely networked than ever. Yet for all this connectivity, new research suggests that we have never been lonelier”. The author presents his argument and gives some factual evidence for the argument. Moreover, he compares his views with others. He gives the readers a problem that many people face nowadays is loneliness. Marche informed “Despite its deleterious effect

The truth is if social media was never invented we still may have found other ways to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. As we spend less time focusing on what’s going on outside in the real world than we do scrolling down our Facebook feeds we separate ourselves. It’s become a part of our everyday routine and, most people check their Facebook before they even have breakfast in the morning. Social media definitely didn’t help, but it is not the sole cause of isolation but, how we use it. If we were to use it how it was intended by making new connections, we wouldn’t feel so separated from the rest of the world.

I agree with the author because, actually when I was reading this article, I realized that all these issues are happening to me right now, we are always searching people to talk in Facebook, we are always wanting to have the best photo in Facebook, and the most important thing I don’t have time to read because social networking and I thing that is a huge problem for me and every single people in the world.

In his article, “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” Stephen Marche argues that Facebook is the vital cause for loneliness and is luring people away from social capital. According to Marche, social networking isolates individuals and creates distance, mostly amongst family members. For some, it is not only isolation but rather social loneliness. The author claims that health can also be effected by loneliness. Nowadays, due to very little verbal person to person communication, he writes that people have never been so separated from one another because of social media. Facebook users, Marche argues, have an addiction to profoundly visit their account constantly leading to the feeling of loneliness and in most cases depression. The author claims that social networking, instead of demolishing isolation, is unknowingly spreading it. Ultimately, However, Stephen’s argument fails to convince due to his abundant false assumptions and the articles confusing organization.

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.

al., 639). Although readers of the article can comprehend what the researcher is asserting, it is simplified in the USA Today article to succinctly state the link between Facebook and depression: “Social media-linked depression potentially [stems] from not only what people do online but also how their experiences linger with them afterward. (Hatner, para 3). When the author of the USA Today source describes the link between depression and Facebook, they simply say that there is a lingering effect of using Facebook and making comparisons. Although the scholarly article is saying that Facebook can intrude on daily life, they use more complicated jargon. Whereas the scholarly source uses sources for almost every sentence, there is limited citation in the USA Today source. In the USA Today article, they only quote the author of the survey once. Since the researchers of the Baker and Algorta article present research based on the research of others, they heavily cite their evidence while the popular source only cited the basic idea of the lead researcher, David Baker. In these articles,

A prevalent issue regarding social media and interactions exists between researchers and social network users. Social media is currently changing how relationships between people are created. Relationships can exist through people across the world through social media and can produce more emotional bonds with friends that you can see everyday. On the other hand, social media also could present conflicts due to the fact that some of these relationships can become unhealthy and that people could change to be more dependent on internet friends, becoming introverted.

In “The Popular Crowd” written by Jake Halpern, the main point Halpern makes is people are becoming lonelier as time and technology develop. Many people may even be unaware of the loneliness they have, and therefore it can cause a lot of different emotions. As time and technology develop, Americans have become more and more prone get caught up in a celebrity’s life, and a unique way of dealing with loneliness is forming a para-social relationship (Halpern 225).

Clarissa Silva article in the Huffington Post delves into social media’s impact on self-esteem. As a behavioral scientist, her interest in the matter relates to her field. She also gets the help of other experts Dr. Jennifer Rhodes, Natalia Lusinski, and Dr. Suzana Flores to help with her research. Silva states that “social media is linked to higher levels of loneliness, envy, anxiety, depression, narcissism and decreased social skills" (1). Then outlines her research findings using rhetorical appeals.

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

What’s more, in the article, the author shows us many other researchers and examples from the professional study prove his topic “Is Facebook making us lonely." For example, Moira Burke concludes that the effect of Facebook depends on what people bring to it. And her research does not support the assertion that Facebook creates loneliness.

The book talks about how internet can deepen friendships, using social media to become more aware of a friend’s day to day life. (Berger, 204, p. 551-552). Social media helps most friendships, I always loved seeing the pictures my friends would post while we were apart as it almost allowed me to be with them or sometimes my friends would post pictures of us together just to say they missed me. As my friends and I have graduated high school and entered college, we may not see eachother very much within a year. Social media is one thing that allows us to always keep in touch. We may not see eachother everyday like before but things like snapchat allow us to stay in touch. Technology really has been able to form and improve friendships. Along with keeping in touch, social media also helped me reconnect with friends Id lost contact with. My senior year of high school one of my friends from second grade reached out to me via social media. We met up one day and out friendship rekindled, I gained another valuable friendship because of social media. According to the book the fear of internet causing isolation is false, if anything internet users seem to have more friends than nonusers (Berger,

So yes, it appears Facebook may play a small role in loneliness, however, the author does not explicitly state that Facebook is the only culprit. He is eager to recite numerous facts about loneliness and its negative effects but, it is hard for me to agree that Facebook is the sole contributor, if

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.

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.