Social Media Synthesis Essay

In the last ten to fifteen years accompanying the dawn of social media, means of communication among friends and strangers have been easier than ever. Since its creation in 2004, Facebook has grown into the largest social media site on the Internet with 30 million users and counting. The ability to catch up with former high school friends who are now across the country or see how an aunt in Pittsburgh has been doing since the birth of her son are now as simple as the click of a mouse. However, the amount of “friends” acquired on social media may not be an accurate reflection of how many close relationships one truly shares. In an article from Bigthink.com titled “Do You Have Too Many Facebook Friends?”, Steven Mazie gathers research from Pew Research Center about statistics surrounding Facebook

Online predators and Stalkers can easily gain access to social media users’ personal information by either requesting to be a user’s friend or simply finding a way around the user's privacy settings. According to June Ahn, chat rooms are public and is an unmonitored space where online predators are more likely to be. “Adolescents are less likely to be targeted for unwanted sexual solicitation in social media than chat rooms.”(Ahn, June) I have found that, 412 adolescents were more likely to talk with strangers. This is hazardous for young children and adolescents because their lack of life experience leads them to blindly accept all friend request. The effort to seem popular by having many friends online can damage credibility and truth worthiness.

However, with the expansion of social media, many argue that the word “friend” has lost its meaning. Social media “friends” may, in reality, just be acquaintances added to social media lists order to appear popular. Even as many Americans spend time and energy developing

For as long as a lot of us can remember people have been using social media. People put a large majority of their lives on Facebook or other social media websites or apps. Since they do that, anyone could go on someone’s account and find out a lot about them. College admissions officers and potential employers do it all of the time. College admissions officers and employers should look at social media accounts because it will help make their decision easier, they can see if the applicant could be a potential embarrassment, and can get a different view of the applicant that’s not on paper.

In Faux Friendship, by William Deresiewicz, his argument is that friendships in today’s time are different from earlier times. He argues in his essay that social media websites have destroyed our chances of having real friendships. Also, he claims that technology in general is making us stray away from the actual time it we can spend with real friends. We believe that having more Facebook friends makes us feel good about the number of friends we have. Are these truly our friends?

Social media platforms, movies, tv shows, and other forms of entertainment media have only continued to grow in popularity. With this ever-increasing availability has also come a drastic variety of ways to see both ourselves and other people; whether in a positive light or a negative one depends on the representation itself. While the media often perpetuates negative stereotypes, diverse representation can dramatically improve the self-esteem of those represented.

With 50% of users logging on to Facebook everyday and more than 35 million users updating their status’s everyday (Facebook a, 2010), it posses the question what effect are social networking sites, mainly Facebook, having on our friendships? Are we extending our social networking and enriching them? Or are the effects of the ease and accessibility of a ‘friend’ demeaning our relationships?

It has never been easier to build a long-distance relationship or friendship, but all this power at our fingertips does come with some drawbacks. The definition of the word “friend” has changed a lot since the introduction of Facebook in 2004. Some people seems to believe that being friends in social media translate to friendship in real life. Being friends on social media usually just mean that you guys are somehow connected —according to the six degrees of separation theory, everyone on earth are connected in six round of introduction or less. Which is not surprising considering that most of our friend list on Facebook is filled with strangers or acquaintances. Having 700 friends on Facebook does not mean anything and people wouldn’t show up to a party thrown by a stranger. Would you go to a party thrown by someone who you barely know or never hang out with? Of course, you wouldn’t and that is not Facebook’s or the modern world’s fault. You have only yourself to blame for being anti-social and a

It is no secret that social media has taken over a lot of our time, and perception on society. It influences our day to day lives without us really knowing. Social media usually portrays one’s life to be perfect, or it makes us feel like one’s life needs to be perfect. For this reason being, social media can be a bad thing. In "The Social Networks" by Neal Gabler, he explains how media has taken away the meaning of friendship or anything 'real'. In the long run, social media makes things seem better than they actually are, it gives us unrealistic expectations for our friend and family interactions, which kills the chance of having actual friendships because our expectations are so high. So, here are the reasons elaborated on why social media

At first, I agreed with Stephen Marche, author of “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?”, but after doing some of my own research I would like to retract my original position. We cannot blame technology for our own human condition. However Stephen Marche begs to differ. “At the forefront of all this unexpectedly lonely interactivity is Facebook, with 845 million users and $3.7 billion in revenue last year” (Marche). Stephen Marche believes Facebook is making us lonely because it is changing the dynamics of traditional friendships (Marche). He also blames Facebook for the rise in human isolation. From 1950 to 2010 a 17 percent increase in households of one were reported (Marche). Does Marche not realize that many happy Americans

It’s quite fascinating that in the early 2000’s social media wasn’t even invented; yet statistics show that Facebook has accumulated users surpassing the entire population of the United States. The

Aristotle suggest, “The desire for friendship comes quickly. Friendship does not.” Have you ever asked yourself what exactly is a friend? Is it someone you can call when times get tough, or perhaps someone who comments on your posts every day? How many friends do you have total on social media and do they know you personally? Knowing a person for a long period of time and being there as their life revolves can describe true friendship. A friend is someone with similar experiences, trials and tribulations, or just simply someone who has the same goals and sense of humor. Being a real friend takes time and it does not compare to all the “likes” you get on your social media. On another note, social media is said to be an addition to the strong bonds of friendships. Lovenheim, Silver, Deresiewicz, Pickard, and Kituku, all are authors with different outlooks when it comes to social media and friendships. Some of these authors agree, while the others disagree. Online friendships can only survive when there is effort being made.

The term “friendship” has really changed over the years as technology has begun to advance. In “What I Didn’t Write About When I Wrote About Quitting Facebook,” Michael Erard exaggerates the way people react to others quitting social media, specifically Facebook (Erard 161). Erard implies that the people who we are friends with on social media, aren’t necessarily our friends who we see every day and have a special bond with: “Then, as one does with one’s friends, I would call each person up or

Facebook, a social networking website, has changed the way people communicate with each other. A social networking website is an online platform that allows users to create a public profile and interact with other users on the website. Facebook has even changed our most personal and private conversations and how they are conducted around the world. Since the internet’s birth in 1983, this trend of online communication has been growing. Created in 2004, now registered with more than one billion participants, Facebook’s user numbers surpass even the top four social networking websites combined. According to Wikipedia statistics, Instagram has 300 million registered users, LinkedIn has 200 million users, Classmates.com has 50 million users, and Flickr has 32 million registered users. To be further convinced of the claim that Facebook indeed changes the way we communicate, you would only need to create your own Facebook account and start participating in their social networking experience. Technology and internet usage is fused into every aspect of our society including the style of communication. The launch of Facebook in 2006 also enabled other devices such as touch phones, interactive tablets, and even advanced cars with their own networking capabilities starting in 2007. Facebook is a multibillion-dollar company and is highly recognized for connecting more people than other networks. Facebook’s long-term success can be attributed to providing entertainment, world news, and

The project aim at teenagers, therefore sample group is between 13 to 19. I will set the sample sizes in 50 participants since it is easy to identity and more precision. If a sample sizes increase, it is very hard to estimate and become not accurate. Also, I’m worry about the extremes data can’t make a balance out, so the project prefers small sample sizes. It can take less effort to gain and maintain people, it is easy to produce significant results and comfortable to find a group of people. I will obtain samples from friends or friends’ sister and brother.