Social Media Has Painted My Worldview

Communication plays a vital role in human life. Being able to communicate is one of the most important things humans do for one another. There are hundreds of different ways humans communicate whether it’s through different languages, talking on the phone or sending letters in the mail, and the most recent form of communication, social media. What is so outstanding about social media is the fact that it allows individuals to represent themselves and have their own voice in the form of words, pictures, and videos. How is this new form of communication affecting the younger generations? Social media has had a detrimental effect on how we interact with each other, especially little kids and young adults.

Being published in a newspaper column, Wortham writes in a less formal language to explain her thoughts on communication through smartphone applications. By including personal stories behind her usage of technology, she is able to reflect on those and validate her opinion of messaging apps. She is able to connect with their reader on a more personal level because the reader can relate to her experiences. Due an excessive amount of technology use from people of all ages, Wortham’s article can reach anyone that uses messaging applications including couples of all ages. She does not single out long distance couples because she also includes the benefits of having these applications with family, friends, and coworkers. In her essay, Wortham straightforwardly states her thoughts on apps such as Facebook messenger, Snapchat, and even Tinder, leaving no room for the reader to become confused. In addition to her own opinions and statistics from Pew Research Center, she uses Sherry Turkle, who disagrees with messaging applications, to acknowledge that both sides understand that there is not an application on our smartphone that can replace a face-to-face

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.

This article response paper is a reflection of Susan Tardanico’s article, “Is Social Media Sabotaging Communication?” Consequently, technology expansion is causing families to forfeit quality intervals together for the indulgence of their electronic contraptions. Additionally, social media, advanced technology, and the need to fit in seem to be consuming people’s lives. Communication is such an important means of transmitting information, however has become “foreign” to this new generation of young adults. Furthermore, verbal communication plays varied roles in each community, without it; relationships would fail, co-workers would have more frequent miss-understandings, and confusion is more likely to occur between companions who only have electronic interactions. “As

Kids today have so much access with just the use of one handheld device. With all the options of video apps, picture apps, and texting apps, sexting has become a very popular act today. Sexting has been around for years and years, but why has it become so popular? Is it because more and more kids have phones? Or is it because parents don’t have as much control over what their children can and cannot look up through their phones. An analysis on today’s teenagers shows that sexting has become a huge problem with teenagers today all because of the improvement of electronics.

Innovations such as FaceBook and MySpace combine images, text, and messaging to create new possibilities for social interaction. Websites such as YouTube combine broadcast media with the self-directed properties of the internet. SMS texting has revolutionised the social lives of many people. All these media allow people to sustain relationships across time and space in ways that have never before been possible. Some are concerned however, that over-reliance on such forms of communication reduces the importance of face-to-face social experience. Others argue that such media present new ways of defining our identities and establishing new kinds of social interaction (Castells, 2000).

With new inventions and technology gradually growing every step of the way, many channels of communication have been created. Smart phones, computers, and social media have had such an impact in the way we interact with one another. Millennials have grown in a world where face to face interactions do not have the same meaningful connections that past generations have had. According to an article which explored smart phones and mediated relationships, “We found that the majority of our respondents multitask exploring the Internet or listening to music while also texting as a stable form of social contact. This suggests that young adults are increasingly blurring the line between symbolic and material spaces rather than being mentally and physically present with the other” (Pettegrew, 2015). It has been clear how much of an impact technology has had in the way we interact and communicate with one another, and this has opened up a door for new communication studies research to be done. Technology will continue to grow, and changes in message will occur along with that growth, so as communication scholars we have a lot to study and analyze within the future. “Studies of actual interpersonal relationships and how digital media affected them over time or,

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

I’m eighteen years old, so thru my entire teenage years I’ve been overhearing the debate over how technology is affecting people’s ability to develop appropriate relationships. If you had asked me wjat my view was before I went to a boarding school with limited access to internet, I would have said social media is good for people; it connects them. However, after spending a year without social media, I now realize that the sites that led me to believe I was connected were false. While my friend status was high, I sat in my dark room with no ne oto actualy talk to. Robert Kuttner writes in his article ‘The Other Side of E-Mail’, of how technology “has a dark side” (243). Peggy Orenstein writes in her article ‘I Tweet, Thereofre I Am’ of how she was enjoying a beautiful day with her daughter and instead of simply enjoying the moment, she felt compelled to tweet about it (251). Living in a world filled with constant noise and desire to fit in causes a lack of real connection.

Many researchers argue that social media provides a cloak by which people can hide behind. In other instances, the Internet has established a place for those who fear interacting in the real world. They can now safely communicate and build relationships. The topic of cloaking is interesting because prior to the internet, people had to venture out into the world and had to communicate live with people, the process developed social skills that are threatening to be lost as social networking continues to grow. At the forefront is the notion that social media as well as personal electronics is “killing” communication (Tardanico 2012). The author reflecting on an incident that occurred between a friend and her daughter and

Judging based on the ubiquity of mobile technology and the degree to which technology is entrenched in our lives, I argue, that the line that separates the digital/virtual world from the ‘real’ world is ever dwindling. As such, it is important to consider the implication(s) of these two worlds bleeding into one another. In this analysis, I will look specifically at sexting and assess the gender dynamics of sexting.

For generations, several forms of digital communication have been developing among the human population. E-mailing, social networking, and video face calling have been major impacts of communication and have been revolutionized across the globe, but text messaging has been the leading form of human communication among the population, specifically the teenage population. Adolescent teenagers have been able to use text messaging by interacting much faster with their friends, including some that are long distant away from them. This has also lead teenagers to interact using fewer words and more jumbles of letters that suppose to mean something, such as “TTYL”

people. People rely profoundly on the ease of text messages, emails and social media. The use of

In expanding on this topic, there are a number of factors that serve to distinguish between electronic communication, and where the people have some level of actual human exchange. One of the greatest issues surrounding electronic communication (i.e. texting and chatting), is the absence of tone, reflective listening, and voice (Wiederhold 2015). What is left are simply the visual words that can easily be taken out of context. Although colorful ways have been created in an attempt to ensure what a person is trying to say, in many instances, words and meanings are taken out of context (15). One example would be using capitalized letters. In the world of social media, capital letters means the person is upset however; when two people are verbally communicating, bolding one’s words could also mean that the person is emphasizing. Furthermore, the many abbreviations also are problematic, because people have gotten lazy and the longer the text conversation continues, the shorter the full sentences and the greater the possibility of being misunderstood, often leading to conflict (15). The same holds true for chat rooms. The written words, where maturity is lacking has also served to drive some of the largest issues on social media; cyber bullying, the inability to build social skills, and pointing to the increased level of isolation by young people.

Digital communication through today’s technology is empowering our society and strengthening human relationships through connecting us in ways that are impossible through organic human to human interaction. This exceptionally innovative technology was once only imaginable in science fiction literature, and is now a reality for most of humanity. We use this form of communication on a daily basis throughout the planet. We rarely stop to think about how wondrous and seemingly magical this advanced technology is, and we seldom ponder on how this new form of communication impacts us as a culture. Advanced digital communication not only enables and emboldens us, but could be potentially harming and hindering us as a culture as well as socially