The Culture Of Shut Up By Jon Lovett Essay

Seife illustrates the internet to be a trap for close minded people. He states, “With news and data that is tailored to our prejudices, we deprive ourselves of true information. We wind up wallowing in our own false ideas, reflected back at us by the media. The news is ceasing to be a window unto the world; it is becoming a mirror that allows us to gaze only upon our own beliefs (299). This happens when individuals avoid ‘negative information’ that doesn’t coincide with their own beliefs just to be comfortable. Which in other words, would put individuals in a state of cognitive dissonance. The internet is supposed to be a place where people explore new things, take on new

In Esther Dyson’s “Cyberspace: If You Don’t Love It, Leave It”, the existence of the internet is seen as potentially dangerous to today’s society. Dyson insists that the internet was once a sanctuary for tech savvy individuals such as gamers and professionals like engineers. The author focuses on the negative websites and communities that are often found offensive to the majority. She thinks the World Wide Web harbors a lot of power. This power can be accessed and conquered easily by most of the population. According to Dyson, responsibility is the key to changing the future (295). Her argument is convincing but slightly unrealistic. The internet seems to be growing into a whole other alternate universe. Society’s rapidly growing technology industry will only be harder to regulate. Most people will do what they want, when they want especially when it comes to the internet.

Social Media is a form of communication in which a person shares information, personal ideas, and thoughts online. The foundation of social media began in 1997 when the first social media site Six Degrees was developed. Since 1997, social media has become an iconic name and has become part of this generation's conversation. There are over 100 million people using social media to gain access to the digital world, with over 20 social media sites including Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram (Milanovic 1). Roughly 80 percent of teens and 20 percent of adults use social media daily and almost half of the users were bullied or criticized for a single comment. Comments that include discrimination, sexism, or political beliefs can be retweeted to thousands in a matter of hours. “Accusations go viral, globally, within hours, and instead of having dozens of angry voices baying for your blood, you have tens of thousands” (Haley 1). Although social media has made it easier to communicate these sites, make it easier to be critical or prejudiced to others online instead of face-to-face.

The internet has become a popular source used by society of a worldwide computer network that provides a variety of information and communication facilities allowing individuals to communicate with one another easily. The internet it self has brought people together but has changed the way people interact with each other, created isolation, some addiction and being unsafe. Nowadays, anything can be shared to the wide world through any device that is able to connect to the internet; where this can lead to what Charles Seife terms as “no privacy” in his article, “The Loneliness of the Interconnected.” According to Seife, the Internet’s vast interconnectivity made it possible for everyone to hear everyone else - and to be heard by everyone else.

Many people believe that the internet and other advances that have come from modern technology are the best things that have ever happened to them, and they may be right. However, according to Seife, the internet only makes things worse. Through his use of diction, especially in his opening statement “opinions are stubborn things” Seife clearly embodies a bitter and mocking tone (223). Seife’s tone, though well backed, puts his readers off from what he claims because most, if not all, people spend lots of time on the internet scrolling through a feed full of things they believe in. He isolates those who use an online community to strengthen their beliefs. In this way, Seife uses his diction poorly and ends up chasing his audience away, which is not ideal, especially in the first paragraph.

There are few places on this Earth, if any, where the possibilities are truly endless. However, if you detach yourself from the physical world and emerge into the “online” world, you find that this just might actually be accurate in this realm. The World Wide Web has had so much to offer to us since the early 1990s, but with this comes controversy. Unleashed onto a plane of seemingly immeasurable freedom of anonymity, was the world ready for such responsibility? Since those early days when new emerging technology changed our lives immensely, have we at all become a better place, or have we bitten off more than we can chew, and doomed our human relations forever? Exploring these concepts are three in-depth articles, including: “Growing Up Tethered” by Sherry Turkle, “The Loneliness of the Interconnected” by Charles Seife, and “Cybersexism” by Laurie Penny. Although it is thought that the Internet brings the world together, it actually does not help us politically, culturally, and economically like one would believe, as it makes us unable to be independent, isolates us from different points of view, and encourages real-world violence against women and other minority groups.

In 2011, New York Times executive editor, Bill Keller, wrote an article entitled, “The Twitter Trap” in which he uses the social media site to discuss its’ impact on society, and the negative ramifications. The article attempts to illustrate the potential dangers of social media on relationships, the functioning of the brain, as well as the education and intelligence of current and future generations. He claims that social media can be dangerous because “innovation comes at a price” and Keller’s concern is that “the price is a piece of ourselves”, which becomes the basis of his argument throughout the article (Keller). Keller’s is directing his article, and consequently his argument towards the New York Times readership, and even more specifically those who are parents of children on social media, as well as general Twitter and social media users.

In the past ten years the way we as a people communicate has changed greatly. No longer is it uncommon for conversations to not be face to face and now more so than ever conversations take place through text. As with any change there will be and is push back to it. The conflict over the consequences of the social media dependent society have now intensified as a result of social media playing ever greater roles in how politics is seen and even conducted. This has been a major societal question since the presidential election of 2008 and the debate has been written about, discussed, and argued by thousands of different politicians,

In her call to action, The People’s Platform; Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, Astra Taylor addresses underlying social and economic forces of the internet and differential perspectives towards it. Taylor discusses the new internet in which content is king and, people are now the product, this is called Web 2.0. She discusses this topic from a couple viewpoints; those who would believe that the internet is truly the new people’s platform and that it is the golden age of sharing and collaboration, called the Techno-optimists. The counterparts of this interpretation of the internet are what she calls the Techno-Skeptics, who have a similar mindset in that of Nicholas Carr, an author about technology in the modern age, with the

Mitchell Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corporation and the designer of Lotus 1-2-3 once quoted, “Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.” This quote suggests the idea that human interaction is better than relying on the internet for answers and companionship. However, sometimes the internet is easier and more peaceful. Even though there are many challenges of human interactions that can prevent people from getting along, there are also many ways that people can overcome those challenges.

But only in the internet age have national conversations—in which anyone with internet can participate—been possible. This is, technologically and culturally, something of a miracle. It can also derail quickly. On Facebook and Twitter, any attempts at civil discourse, especially about matters as charged as rape, tend to quickly unravel. The tenor of national conversations, even among those who agree with one another, usually reach a fever pitch—and not necessarily productively.

The Internet provides arguably the biggest audience of any one medium because there are very few limits to its reach. Therefore then, the Internet has provided a uniquely rapid and almost irreversible way of becoming what some call “Internet famous”. Often, this attention is without the subject’s conscious consent and more than likely comes with consequences in the form of comments from millions of faceless online critics. The availability of becoming an online critic has created a kind of social ownership of deciding which stories Internet users like and dislike. Public awareness, however, of this availability goes far beyond hitting a “like” button. Go on any social media or online news outlet that allows comments and you will find an array of colorful, unabashed and personally attacking comments. The anonymity of online commenting has been evaluated to lead online users to be brasher and even hateful because there is no immediate consequence for their

As a logical consequence, Postmes and Brunsting (2002) reasoned that the Internet is changing society because people's cognitive processes, triggered by access to information and communication, replace the strong social ties that traditionally underpin committed activism. In simpler words, in the past, humanity used the herd instinct as the main driving force behind committed forms of activism. Thanks to the Internet, we climb another step or three on the evolutionary ladder, and simply do away with the herd instinct and replace it with reason. The argument, if put this way, does not sound particularly strong. What can be taken away is that social media is still evolving, that social media changes the way we – or most of us communicate, that social media is used in social and political activism, and that the Internet increases quantitative if not qualitative access to information.

Technology has revolutionized communication and the world like nothing before. The Internet has given the world a freedom never explored in the past. The Internet has broken communication barriers to an extreme level. Now day’s two people from two different countries can talk or chat without interactions. Internet has given people the ability to connect forever through social networking. Some of the biggest world social networking services are Facebook and Twitter. Through technology communication is made much easier, but the communication with the people that are right next to us might be getting weak. Technology has its positive and negative impacts on society. It could keep us informed, but it could also affect anyone’s communication life. Even though it’s an easy communication barrier it’s being over used by society every day. The Internet has charge everyone and everything over the years, it has giving us the ability to be informed on a much deeper level. Families are losing their communication, but not just because of technology. Not everything is positive when it’s about technology. It could help us connect no matter the distance, but we could lose communication and relationships. The world has not yet notice that losing important face to face communication because of technology it’s important.

Most of us use social media to communicate with our family, friends and our loved once. Since almost all of my friends live 8000 mile away, I use Facebook, Instagram, and viber to keep in touch with them. Bur recently I started noticing it has become more than a means of communication. I start posting a picture and obsesses about how many likes I get, checking other peoples Facebook just to see if they have more friends than me, believing every post without questioning if it’s a fact and funny enough I start sending friend request for people I don’t even know. Christine Rosen, a senior editor of the New Atlantis and resident fellow at the Ethics and Public policy Center in Wessington, D.C. on “In the Beginning Was the World”, she wrote how technology is affecting the society’s critical reading ability. Peggy Orenstein, an author and a contributing writer for the New York Times, on “I Tweet, Therefore I Am” she talks about how social media is distracting as from fully live in the moment. Even though the development of technology have increased the quality of life, it also brought undeniable challenges to our society. The constant use of social media and internet has increase society attention-seeking, Distracted, and decries critical reading. The use of social media has increased dramatically throughout the years.