Susan Sontag Regarding The Harm Of Social Media

A photograph, painting, canvas, or drawing today is not the same as it was a decade ago. Technology has evolved to the point where we can photoshop a person into a picture, enlarge a person’s butt, or even whiten people’s teeth. At what point do those technological advances cross a line? With social media ranging from Facebook and Twitter to Instagram and Tumblr, do these media sites promote egotistical behavior? In January of 2013, John Paul Titlow discusses some of the disadvantages and advantages that Instagram has in his essay: “#Me: Instagram Narcissism and the Scourge of the Selfie” that was posted on a website called ReadWrite. Although Instagram was primarily created to simply share pictures, it has evolved to do much more than that. Some businesses use it to advertise, some people use it to share their art, but then there are some people use it to flaunt their own personal lives in the form of pictures. Titlow acknowledges that Instagram is a desirable way to share art and diverse imagery, but additionally acknowledges that it can be a place where one can promote their own self-popularity. He explains that Instagram has become remarkably important in people’s lives to the point that they cannot view life past those Instagram likes (Titlow). Ultimately, Titlow succeeds in emphasizing the issues that Instagram has created by reason of the way he expresses his text, while furthermore expressing who the audience of his essay is, and by making his overall purpose clear.

In Sherman Alexie’s poem “The Facebook Sonnet” Alexie brings up a controversy, over all social media because it absorbs society into the depths of dark unknowns and prevents physical face to face communication. Even though Facebook allows people to stay up to date with friends, whether they be new or deep-rooted, the platform tears its users away from substantial social interaction with others. People can connect to the world by the click of the mouse and know what is going on at any given time. Social media requires ones everlasting attention, and the addiction is almost comparable to that of a cigarette, one cannot give it up and is always thinking about when one can check it again. People become so caught up in trying to perceive what everyone else is doing, they forget that they have a reality to live and fail to maintain real relationships. “The Facebook Sonnet” belittles the social media platform by emphasizing how obsessed society is with making themselves look perfect for the screen. One is either gripping to their past or obsessing over the present.

Clarissa Silva article in the Huffington Post delves into social media’s impact on self-esteem. As a behavioral scientist, her interest in the matter relates to her field. She also gets the help of other experts Dr. Jennifer Rhodes, Natalia Lusinski, and Dr. Suzana Flores to help with her research. Silva states that “social media is linked to higher levels of loneliness, envy, anxiety, depression, narcissism and decreased social skills" (1). Then outlines her research findings using rhetorical appeals.

We live in a world now where we have never been more connected while being more alone. Instead of spending hours on the phone or with our close friends and family, it is now much more convenient to simply tweet, Instagram, or post our feelings on Facebook. Orenstein reveals while she is spending time with her daughter, “ a part of my consciousness had split off and was observing the scene from the outside: this was, I realized excitedly, the perfect opportunity for a tweet” (Orenstein, 347). Orenstein made the conscious, yet somehow detached, decision to post her personal life on social media, instead of fully indulging in the moment. People have allowed social media to overtake both their social lives and

Firstly, there have been significant links between our online presence and other aspects of our mental health, which has inspired the subject matter of many recent research studies around the world. There are many psychological and physical factors that affect our mental well-being due to the impact of social media. Depression and Body Dysmorphia being the leading causes, due to the content the individuals are exposed to while online. Even though researchers coined the correlation between social media use and depression as complex. Data was collected from a sample of 340 first year college students, and the findings were that the increase use of Facebook have been associated with higher levels of loneliness. Also the extensive use of Facebook has been associated with higher rates of disordered eating and body image insecurity.

Social media is the term that is used to refer to applications and websites that allow people to interact and stay connected (Nations, 2016). Although, the creation of social networking sites is relatively recent, it has rapidly become a prominent part of billions of people’s lives worldwide. For example, between 2012 and 2016 the number of monthly active Facebook users increased by 83% (Statista, 2016). As a result, investigating the effects of social media on people’s psychological wellbeing has become a popular area of research. However, the combination of findings from these studies are inconclusive as to whether social media has a negative or a positive impact on our psychological wellbeing and because social media is so widely used this is an important question to address. Huppert (2009) stated that “Psychological wellbeing is about lives going well. It is the combination of feeling good and functioning effectively” (p. 137). This essay will focus on Facebook, in particular, as it’s the most widely used social network and has over 1.5 billion monthly active users (Smith, 2016). It will discuss research that has investigated the effects of Facebook on life satisfaction, academic performance and psychiatric disorders which are all related to psychological wellbeing. It will conclude that research mostly suggests that social media, in particular Facebook, is harmful to our psychological wellbeing.

To begin, it is proven that social media makes people feel more depressed. For example, people tend to check their social media websites when bored. This boredom soon becomes sadness. As they look through their social media site, they realize that everyone else is having more fun. They notice people are out at dinners, parties, etc, whereas you were not invited to any of these occasions. This makes you quickly ask yourself, “Why am I not having as much fun as them?” As you ponder this question, it essentially makes you feel—lonely and unloved.

Van Dijck (2008) suggests that, “Communication and identity formation are not novel uses but have always been intrinsic functions of photography” (p.59). In the contemporary culture, especially among the younger generations, individuals are constantly posting images on social media sites to share their experiences online. This is particularly evident in the social media platform, Snapchat in which a study done in 2014 found that Snapchat users had sent over 700 million photos and videos per day (Lunden & Tsotsis, 2014). Snapchat is a mobile application which allows users to send snapshots or videos to friends with a brief message in the form of drawing or text. The company suggests that each snap ‘reflect an individual in the moment without the need to curate an everlasting persona’ (“Ads Snapchat,” 2015) This can be explained by the unique function of Snapchat as images will disappear after the set time expires. Therefore, the use of digital photography in Snapchat best represents how digital photography becomes a tool for communication, enabling users to connect and getting in touch. On the contrary, there are other social media networks that not only offer as a site for sharing experiences but also enable individuals to construct an ‘ideal’

In today’s world, images have become a form of self expression. People use images to show how they are feeling. From a selfie, at a family vacation, to their halloween evening, dressed as their favorite superhero. None the less, images have also become a way for people to express their thoughts towards other people and a form of approval. “My Embarrassing Picture Went Viral” by Caitline Seida touches on how, she, a girl with polycystic ovarian syndrome and a failing thyroid gland posted a picture, of her halloween evening with her friends, that soon became of fountain of hate comments that ranged from “What a waste of space” to “You should kill yourself” (Seida 675). “What Selfie Sticks Really Tell us About Ourselves” by Kate Murphy informs

The author Andrew Leonard has said "We've offered up every detail of our lives to advertiser manipulation, voluntarily embraced a panopticonic existence of constant surveillance, and supinely allowed a bunch of techno-utopian Silicon Valley companies to guide and shape our behavior."(Leonard). In this review the author agrees with Silverman about being under constant surveillance, he also agrees with Silverman that we should constantly be alert about the data that we put on social media as in this statement "Silverman is correct: It is critical that we monitor and understand the consequences of "the data-ization of the digital self." "(Leonard). Andrew does not agree with Silverman on the point "Photos become less about memorializing a moment than communicating the reality of that moment to others,"(Silverman, 55). Andres says that “Before social media, you could argue that the modern world specialized in tearing us apart, in atomizing the relationships that once bound societies together. Now we've got something that helps lace the grand tapestry back together. This is not a bad thing” (Leonard). In a way Andrew finds something good in Social

A systematic examination of photographs can reveal many insights into the individual taking the picture. For example, Dijck (2008) explains that picture taking has been widely used as a way for people to save memories of events, a tool for communication and experience, and more recently, as a tool for identity development. For example, in the 20th century, people used photography to save memories to remember their lives (Dijck,2008). As time moved forward it evolved into using photography to communicate with others by sharing their experiences with social media. By using social media like Twitter for example, people share different types of pictures from selfies, to video game screenshots, to a photograph of a new jacket; which occurs not just in the United States but, all over the world (Thelwall, Goriunvova, Vis, Faulkner, Burns, Aulich, Mas-Bleda,

Before reading this a snap or text was probably read. It goes to show, technology is taking over our lives. Deny it all you want but everywhere someone goes technology is all around. People are swarming to social media in order to feel good about themselves. Do people really have such low self esteem that the number of likes dictates their popularity and looks? Nobody is to blame but himself or herself. We are letting a piece of equipment take over our lives. People should explore the beauty of life before we regret to do so. Technology demonstrates how people comply to social norms in order to fit in with the crowd.

The popularity of social media giants such as Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook are on the rise and so is our nation's overall poor mental health status (The State of Mental Health in America). Studies have shown that there is a direct link between our social media obsession and our poor mental health (Walton). Social media can lead to feelings of comparison, jealousy and even delusional behavior. Another effect that social media has on our mental health is that it often leads to feelings of sadness and loneliness. Lastly, social media addiction is one of the many things that affects our mental health. Studies show that social media is often the cause of poor mental health, it can cause comparison, jealousy, loneliness and lastly addiction.

Imagine a life without photographs, do you think we would appreciate life more or less? Photographs help us relive the moments we wanted to capture in life that we enjoyed. We are able to reminisce in those events, every single time we look at those picture. Especially since photographs give us a full on visual description on what everyone in the photo wore and the background. In the book, On Photography, by Susan Sontag, she explains how photograph is both an object and a tool and how its utility changes depending on context and intentions of oneself. Not only are photographs a physical object, it gives us a way to visualize a captured moment. Before social media added the opportunity to upload photographs, the only way we can see a photograph is after we printed out the film. Social media is a great way to connect or reconnect with other users; and now that there is an option to upload a photograph, it gives people to be more admirable or hateful.

that will harm people in the future. She quotes “Jumping quickly from image to image in hastily edited segments (in some cases as quickly as one image every one-thirtieth of a second), television and, to a lesser extent, movies offer us a constant stream of visual candy (Rosen).” Rosen’s explanation of the dangers imaging brings is the more you continue to eat the candy; in this case watch TV; the more everlasting effects will occur. The author uses this comparison in an act to address that the rotting tv causes leads to children's behavior issues. Too much addictive moving visuals becoming “more nimble” and “less demanding of our attention” (Rosen). Murphy modernizes this addiction feeling like a drug when she talks about modern day instagram as as an addictive drug rotting the mind. She quotes Jacquelyn Morie, an immersive technologies entrepreneur and virtual reality researcher at the University of Southern California, stating “We are so bombarded by media telling us how we should look and how we should be,” said,. “With selfies you have this authority and autonomy that you don’t have in other parts of your life (Morie).” Murphy is indirectly taking Rosen's idea of visual candy rotting the mind and putting it into modern day context. People on instagram that post pictures for likes are not self satisfied. They feel affection from random