Loneliness In Stephen Marche's Is Facebook Making Us Lonely

We lost the ability to be still, our capacity for idleness. They have lost the ability to be alone, their capacity for solitude. (The end of solitude, pg.4)

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.

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.

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 article, Is Facebook Making Us Lonely by Stephen Marche, the author claims that social media makes people become lonely. Marche’s article conducted vast amounts of research to support his claim. He presented many strong points in his article about on people becoming lonely due to the effects of social media. Although this article presented data on his claim of the increasing number of people becoming isolated, this article shows irrelevant research the data doesn’t necessarily prove his statement that social media is the cause of people’s loneliness, which consequently weakens his claim. that weakens his argument because the data doesn’t proveon people becoming isolated without the use of social media. which weakens his argument.

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).

The article “I’m So Totally, Digitally, Close To You (Brave New World of Digital Intimacy)” (2002) is written by Clive Thompson, who is also a blogger and columnist. The author aims to explain the users’ attraction of Facebook, Twitter and other forms of “incessant online contact” through his text. Since social networking has become a nearly ubiquitous aspect of human contemporary life, Thomson has effectively illustrated the invasion of the social media into human daily lives, how people are commanded by it. He later goes on to explore the benefits of social networking sites and a few challenges of the usage assumptions.

Stanley Eitzen decries the increasing loneliness that has come with advancement in technology and modernity. For instance, the writer asserts that the present day generation is socially inactive as compared to the past generations. Generally, the apparent isolation that people have found themselves in can be largely attributed to technology. Often times, people find themselves using their mobile phones and computers as opposed to engaging in personal face-to-face communications. In effect, this increases communication between individuals but largely reduces intimacy. Other than technology, the types of modern lifestyles that people have embraced have led to isolation, as people tend to live in social and racial settlements. The state of isolation, the author argues, has many disadvantages as it leaves individuals susceptible to unlawful organizations, such as terrorist groups and evil cults. I wholly conquer with these sentiments.

The essay Stephen Marche wrote “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely” is talking about with the technology what the society looks like now, and social media like Facebook and twitter have made us more densely network than ever.

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,

In today’s world, technology is at its peak. However, there was a time when things were getting evolved and websites were created to connect and socialize. For example, Facebook was created with the intent of connecting with people, but it rather forced people to compare each other’s live, which made some people sad. It became successful, but not completely successful. Libby Copeland’s essay, “Is Facebook Making us Sad,” addresses a key factor in how Facebook makes us sad, according to research and some expert testimony. One key factor that I would like to address in the essay, how humans compare their lives with others on Facebook, making themselves lonely and sad.

The author illustrates in her blog the power and impact Facebook had on the population by convincing to be “a place of human connectivity,” but

In the article Marche overall had a negative view on Facebook as it creates a place that allows people to isolate themselves and avoid real world interactions. When referring Cacioppo he acknowledges that if used correctly Facebook can increase “social capital” but this point could be elaborated further. Facebook is not just a place to keep in contact with friends; new ones could be made on these platforms as well. For people with certain lifestyle choices it could be a source to find a new community that shares the same values and leads to more social gatherings among these like-minded people. When quoting Turkle “The ties we form through the Internet are not, in the end, the ties that bind. But they are the ties that preoccupy,” Marche is

Riding horseback, lounging in a carriage, travelling by train turned metro, through all these years of industrial innovation humanity has needed social interaction. These social interactions have gone from intimate gatherings, to newspapers, to social networking, and people made advancements in ways to gather information faster and in turn dealt away their social presence. Today, young adults throw themselves into an alternate reality which many use to protect them from loneliness while it drags others into remote depths.