Sherman Alexie's The Facebook Sonnet

In “Impression Management in a Networked Setting”, the reading focuses on how people and mainly adolescents project a type of fade on social media sites. The author states how many young people today are sad, but when on Facebook only take happy looking selfies and hide their true feelings, so they can get more likes from friends. And even how your social media profile page can make a good, or bad impression for a future employer; forcing teens to be more warry about what pictures, videos and reshares that are on their profile page. In the book, it goes into the scenario that teenagers

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.

To begin, Alexie shows his negative feeling towards Facebook throughout the entire poem. The sarcastic tone of the poem is prevalent in the first 3 lines. “Welcome to the endless high school/ Reunion. Welcome to past friends/ and lovers” Alexies opinion towards the online friends is that users do not actually consider the friends they have on Facebook as true friends but more as a number on the screen. While one may have

Marche argues that social media such as Facebook is the main cause of people becoming lonelyfor this epidemic occurrence. He begins his article by introducing a death of a Hollywood iIcon, Yvette Vickers. It was noted that Vicki’s mummified body was found only decades after her death. She died in isolation, alone and forgotten by the outside world. Noting the fear of loneliness. A famous celebrity dying without anyone noticing would instill fear being lonely. People are currently “living in isolation that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors, and yet we have never been more accessible” (Marche). Over the years, technology has advanced, exposing many people to social media. Due to this increase of exposure, people are even more

“Let’s sign up, sign in, and confess here at the altar of loneliness.” The Facebook

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

In Stephen Marche’s article, “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” points out many reasons to which social media is making us lonely. One reason why social media is making us lonely is because we are so focused on the internet and we forget what is going on around us. Another reason is because we can see how our friends on Facebook are having a great life and we become lonely because our life is not as interesting as theirs. Even though I disagree with the author’s conclusion that social media is making us lonely, there is ample evidence to support my belief that the internet can also be a tool for communication.

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.

Human beings yearn for connection and belonging: which many American people feel this way to be true. Through this saying, Shelley Galasso Bonanno, wrote “Social Media’s Impact on Relationships,” published in 2016, on Psych Central, and she argues that the use of social media tends to have more of a positive mental impact on individuals whereas, the less use of social media tends to make individuals feel lonely and despaired. Also, mentioning the use of social media can alter face to face contact and real connections. Bonanno begins to build her credence with research, studies and personal experience, and prosperously incorporating emotional appeals. However, toward the end of the article, Bonanno’s attempt to appeal to reader’s emotions strengthen her credence, and ultimately her argument.

With the help of Logos, which promotes the logic and quality of her writing, Mathias is able to construct an argument with a clear purpose and consistency by referring to facts and reasons that support her disagreement claims of Facebook’s real use. However, the lack of Ethos, which moves the reader into agreeing with the author based on the professional image she gives in her argument, hurts her creditability and might leave her readers questionable of her claims and reasons.

Therefore, people start to follow their curiosity of loneliness; they start to create a gap between him or herself and his or her community. However, they still want to be connected with their community, but indirectly. Facebook as one of the social media offers these wanderers to be connected but inexplicitly: people can see what their friends are doing without having to communicate with

“The Facebook Sonnet” by Sherman Alexie is a sonnet that reflects on social media, and how it is influencing our world today. It seemed as if the author of the sonnet was trying to relay the message that in today’s day and age, we are forgetting how to connect to each other in real ways. The heavy use of social media has caused people to lose several sensitivities such as quality in their relationships and value in their use of time. This message can certainly relate to my personal life. Occupying our time on social media is very addicting and time consuming, although it feels somewhat satisfying.

The written word,now a weapon, is now digitized and feed through media. “A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon.” (Bradbury 58). Not only have books become a media revolution so has social interaction. Social media allows for connections formerly unheard. “The problem, they say, is that we spend so much time maintaining superficial connections online that we aren’t dedicating enough time or effort to cultivating deeper real-life relationships.”(WSJ). This avenue of socialization allows for discretion of the true life and person of the poster. “And even worse, the human condition is beginning to devolve. We have become addicted to the vanity of social media unable to expose our lives to the world.”(Green). This media based socialization can overtake the lives of many. “When you add it all up, the average American spends more than 10 hours a day plugged into some form of media.”(Synder). Making the human race even more technology

In the article “Is Facebook Killing Our Souls?,” Shane Hipps insists that he has no enthusiasm for attempting to impede such technological developments; such action would be like attempting to oppose the wind or the tides. Rather, he wants users to comprehend them with insight. Assuming that we learn to wake up and understand, maybe we can make use of technologies instead of being utilize by them. According to Hipps, when we scroll through friends’ updates and posts,

Sherman Alexie got inspired to write this poem because of his interest in the effect of pop culture on daily life. According to Encyclopedia of World Biography, Alexie consistently writes about the hopelessness found in different cultures (“Sherman, Alexie”). Alexie allows readers to relate and reflect on their everyday life or lives of others in different cultures. Alexie’s “The Facebook Sonnet” displays modern pop cultures need to post every second of the day. This generation of technology and online social media is an “endless high school reunion” of