Kathryn Schulz Seduced By Twitter

Moving forward, social media has been a major convenience and reward to virtually everyone. On an individual basis, social media allows friends and family both near and far to communicate with one another. Also, businesses are flourishing through the use of social media. Advertising has never been easier. Horn (2013) states, “Our profession, unlike any time before, is demanding we become social media (…) experts” (1). Horn (2013) also states, “More than half of reporters (55 percent) use Twitter and Facebook to source stories” (1). Social media has greatly benefited business life and personal life.

In Keller's article, "The Twitter Trap," he discusses the positive and negative issues of social media and technology on today's youth. In his examples, he elaborates on the loss of humanity in how the necessity of real-life situations and conversations that make people alive in their souls is disappearing as social media continues to grow more addictive. With the overwhelming growth of social media, even the deemed "smart students" are losing their ability to pinpoint pattern in situations that to the earlier generation would consider obvious. Overall, Keller's main concern and point of the article states that," … my inner worrywart wonders whether the new technologies overtaking us may be eroding characteristics that are essentially human: our ability to reflect, our pursuit of meaning, genuine empathy, a sense of community connected by something deeper than snark or political affinity."

In 2011, New York Times executive editor, Bill Keller, wrote an article entitled, “The Twitter Trap” in which he uses the social media site to discuss its’ impact on society, and the negative ramifications. The article attempts to illustrate the potential dangers of social media on relationships, the functioning of the brain, as well as the education and intelligence of current and future generations. He claims that social media can be dangerous because “innovation comes at a price” and Keller’s concern is that “the price is a piece of ourselves”, which becomes the basis of his argument throughout the article (Keller). Keller’s is directing his article, and consequently his argument towards the New York Times readership, and even more specifically those who are parents of children on social media, as well as general Twitter and social media users.

It’s hard to believe, that only a decade ago social media took off and became the new trend. Of course, there was Friendster and Myspace that had been around for a few years but most of the world’s population hadn’t come around to it yet. Nowadays, social media has taken over our lives. It has influenced every decision we have made in life in one way or another.

The author Peggy Orenstein wrote the article, “I Tweet, Therefore I Am” in the New York Times Magazine to claim that people tweet for themselves because social media is important to them. It describes how people care about their own posts on twitter. Peggy Orenstein uses examples and creates an appeal to ethos, pathos, and logos to convince people that social media is important to us. She adds how anyone tries to post a tweet that is interesting enough to talk about on their page.

In “Enough about You”, Brian Williams, journalist and anchor states that Americans became selfish and not interested in anything that does not involve them due to the use of the social media. He believes people will not be informed about crucial events around the world, because they will only read about things they care about: “with the ability to tailor our media consumption today to only those sources that reflect our already held view, we may be missing out on alternative perspectives ‘that citizens in an informed democracy need to know” (472). I believe Williams makes valuable points about negative influence of social media. However, in my opinion, this new technology platform has many positive aspects as well and I would like to describe them both in my essay.

Social networking sites such as Twitter has made a tremendous change, in the aspects of how people network and communicate with each other over the past couple of years. Remarkably, Twitter was created in March 2006. By February 2010, the hype of this self-styled “New Twitter Experience,” Twitter users were sending out over 50 million tweets per day. In Peggy Orenstein’s article “I Tweet, Therefore I Am,” she exploits the argument that people should tweet for themselves, and not for the pleasing of their followers. Even though, since the article was featured in the The New Your Times. The relevance of this article was intended to be read by the readers of The Times, which most of them were businessmen and politicians between ages of 30-35. Nevertheless, this article was written on July 30th 2010, printed, and published in the book, The

Although my experiences are not substantive enough to make a conclusion, several other people such as Kathryn Schulz share similar sentiments. In Schulz’s view, “The trouble with Twitter […] is that it’s a solution to a problem that shouldn’t be solved. Eighty percent of the battle of writing involves [..] waiting out the loneliness and opacity [...] until the damn thing resolves to words.” Schulz, a writer, offers her perspective on the effects of the internet on writing.

Social media is being used today by Adults, Teens now even Children. Peggy Orenstein “Each twitter post seemed a tacit referendum on who I am, or at least who I believe myself to be” (Orenstein, 381). She does a wonderful job explaining the negativity and positivity about social media and internet.

Social media has corrupted the lives of the newer generation. It is no secret that technology has taken over the world by storm. While some technological advances have helped America, most have done the exact opposite. In discussions of social media

Recently, people are now discussing how social media changes our life, whether it is good or bad. Some of them think that social media is a kind of fad because of its rapid development. Others think that it is really useful and makes our life easier than before.

Social media takes up a considerable portion of people’s lives. A myriad of people use social media; this makes news stories and articles on social media sites are a convenient way for people to obtain information about current events happening around the world. The author of Journalism and the Digital Revolution states, “Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest have become integral parts of the reporting process and vital connections

Since the invention of the Internet, people have become indulged with its copious functions, from making advanced programs to learning how to do new projects to social media. Social media has evolved over the years, from Friendster to Myspace to Facebook, since the late 1990s, and people have incorporated it into their lives. It is the modern way for people to connect and communicate with anyone and everyone across the globe. Plus, social media is everywhere; people utilize it when they are on the bus, at the checkout line, and even when they are using the restroom. In Peggy Orenstein’s “The Way We Live Now: I Tweet, Therefore I Am,” she propounds that social media has altered society. Social media has changed society’s priorities, characteristics, and mentality.

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.

Social media can be seen from completely different aspects and points of views. A major role in these different opinions plays mostly the age of the beholder, because social media made an enormous change in the last 50 years. One very important aspect in our today’s society is to get as many information as possible in a very short time period ("Impacts of social media”) Through social media and especially social networks such as twitter and Facebook, the information gets spread extremely fast. There are for example reporters who search on those networks to get information for their news and articles. (“Impacts