Monday, April 30, 2012

"Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?" Period 5

Nonfiction Article of the Week from The Atlantic: May 2012


1. Read & annotate the article noting:

*Author's Bias(es)

*Tone

*Connections

*Reaction/ Personal Thoughts & Opinions

2. Post on this blog:

Do you believe that sites like Facebook have increased loneliness? Reference the article to support your opinion.

18 comments:

  1. I think Facebook is making us lonely. Most of our friend requests are sent to people who we've seen around in school, but probably have never talked to before. Instead of actually talking and meeting these people in person, we add them just to get the feeling that we have a lot of friends. We do, just in Facebook. Chatting in Facebook has closed us out of getting the chance to talk to that person in real life. We are now accustomed to asking a question and waiting for an immediate response, which is a bad thing for a real conversation. Facebook users ALWAYS feel they have to be connected in order to function correctly, which isn't true. "The people who experience loneliness on Facebook are lonely away from Facebook, too." If we don't use Facebook for a while, we feel disconnected from the rest of the world. Users are always under the constant pressure to post a status update and comment on someone's photo in order for us to feel connected.

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    Replies
    1. Again, the person who posted the above is:

      Henry Lau
      Period 5

      Delete
    2. I believe that Facebook is making us lonely and I needs to stop. Me personally I could careless about Facebook why do people care some much about thinking that they are so important that they have to post everything that is going on in their life I believe that they should be something more productive like getting a job or something. Also I believe that if you think that you are popular just because you have a lot of friends on Facebook then you don't have many friends and are very lonely but loneliness I believe to be very relaxing and enjoyable so being alone could be good but only once in awhile not all of the time. Also I believe that facebook could be useful if you loose your phone and you still stay connected by going online but that is the only way that Facebook I be live is useful
      Ryan

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  2. I personally think that Facebook is making people lonely. In the article Stephen Marche states "The more connected we become, the lonelier we are." Here he is saying the more connected we get with Facebook the more we look up to Facebook and that makes us lonely because we forget about things while using Facebook. Marche also said, "If two woman each talk to thier friends the same amout of time, but one of them spends more time reading about friends on Facebook as well, the one reading tends to grow slightly more depressed." I think that people who are single see all these relationships and different things of how much people "love" each other and get really depressed and lonely because they're single and have no one. I think people over use Facebook and it does indeed make them lonely!

    Ashlie Forsberg

    Ashlie Forsberg

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  3. First of all, I found this article to be very interesting. I definitely believe sites like Facebook have increased loneliness. Stephen Marche writes, “More than half its users-and one of every 13 people on Earth is a Facebook user-log on every day. Among 18-to-34-year-olds, nearly half check Facebook minutes after waking up, and 28 percent do so before getting out of bed…Facebook never takes a break. We never take a break.” It is those people obsessed with Facebook who do not have many conversations person to person because they choose to spend their time alone. And when Facebook comments and such are being looked through, “we gather less. And when we gather, our bonds are less meaningful and less easy.” Since someone’s thoughts have already been posted to friends, it is hard to find things to talk about when that person actually meets with his or her friend. Spending more and more time away from someone weakens their once strong bond, too. Time weakens bonds and if people do not pay attention to the need of human interaction, they will become extremely lonely and no one wants to be alone in this day and age of technological connections.

    Meglin Bodner

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  4. I believe that Facebook could make people lonely but can also bring them together. We can get close to family that we haven't seen for a while. Also when people don't have cellphones they could communicate through Facebook and even see each other. But the more time people spend on facebook, the less time they spend with their friends.And most of the "friends" we have on facebook are people that we have no idea who they are. Or they could be kids from school but yet don't talk to them. "If tou are lonely, you're less likely to exercise. You're more likey to be obese." I do agree with this because Facebook can definitely take a whole day away from you without you even noticing and more likely to become lazy and don't go outside to play. But this is our choice. "We make decisions about how we use our machines, not the other way around." So if we are lonely than it means that we want to be lonely. I also think that if Facebook didn't exist, people would still find something else to do on the computer which can also make them lonely. People are not lonely just because of Facebook.

    Jennyfer Jarrin

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  5. I don't necessarily think that Facebook is making us lonely, but I do think that it can strain real life relationships. We can use it to talk to people we do not see everyday. However, we can also spend too much time on it that we don't communicate with them face to face. People spend hours on Facebook everyday instead of being social. All of this technology is great, but it comes at a price. Our generation is the one that texts people sitting next to us, uploads pictures every five seconds, is glued to our computer screen, etc. In one way it helps us keep in touch with people, but in another it just strains the real life relationships we have because we would rather talk to people online than just hang out. We make ourselves lonely by the choices we make and if we decide to spend hours on end on Facebook than that is our choice and we must face the consequences for it."750 million photographs uploaded over a single weekend." How can we have time to hang out or go do something if every other second we are uploading pictures
    Kelsie DePino

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  6. I think that facebook can be making us unable to speak face to face. Connection now a days is almost all on the computer. It is affecting the way we interact with eachother. But It can also bring families and friends together. Facebook can be so distrating to people, and they lose focus on what they were orignally planning to do.

    Laurel
    per.5

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  7. Personally I have found this article extremely interesting and do believe that sites like Facebook make poeple lonely. It talked about how "in 1985 only 10 percent of people Americans had no one with whom to discuss important matters. By 2004, 25 percent had nobody to talk to." those facts are extremely unbelieving. I think to myself how is that possible? It also showed that how Facebook users had slightly lower levels of social loneliness but higher levers of family loneliness. That shows that addicted Facebook users are becoming more attached to friends and what's going on in the "gossip/social media" world and aren't concerned of what's happening within their family. Personally I feel that Facebook is ruining life's of many people, especially because when your lonely it affects the brain as well and causes problems. If people are addicted their going to need help at some point in there life.

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  8. ^^^^^^^^^^^ JJ Carbone period 5

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  9. I dont think that facebook is causing us to be lonely. It is a great way to stay connected with long lost friends. You can keep in touch with family. It can connect people from different countries, and keep long distance relationships. You can re kindle and meet lost friends you havent been in touch with for a few years.

    Lauren Atkinson
    Period 5

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  10. I think that facebook and other social networking sites are just making it easier for people to communicate, which is causing some people to not have face to face conversations with other. But its not literally causing us to be lonely, unless the people using it take it to far to the extent of messaging their mom and dad or siblings. Other than that, i feel that it can bring some people togethor, such as the ones who dont live in the same country as you. Being able to communicate with people all around the world can make us lonely from the close ones we stop having face to face conversations with, but then make us closer with the ones we cant have the face to face conversations with. You just have to know how to control the amount you use it.

    -Zack

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  11. I believe that sites like facebook contribute to isolation but I don't believe it makes us lonely. But most of the time it depends on the situation and type of person each individual is for example so some people gain more confidence through facebook and it improves their social skills. But how often each person goes on and how they use it can sometimes have a negative affect. At one point the article said, "we have all been in that scene: transfixed by the glare of a screen, hungering for a response." being obsessed with computers is not healthy and that is the main problem spending so much time on the computer and not getting out to socialize and communicate. So control is the resolution. If you can control how often you use it, and you control yourself to use it positively then Facebook is good.
    Emma c

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  12. It's goes without saying that the world is now much more connected than it has ever been before, thanks to the internet and more specifically social networking sites like Facebook. But I think that these sites have only increased the speed and ease of connection between two people, and not the quality of the relationship. It's true that Facebook can "make or break" a relationship, but that all dependent on what you choose to post and what you allow others to post. A simple misinterpretation of a status could change things between two people - and that's almost scary in a sense; we trust that what we see posted online, given that our friends name and picture is right next to it, when it really could just be another person on their account. There was recently a story in the news about a man who brought his iPhone into Best Buy (where he bought it) to get it fixed; later, returning to Best Buy to pick it up, he picks up what he thought was his iPhone...but was really a new iPhone entirely. He then discovered that his Facebook was posting statuses such as "I am gay, I am coming out" and others along those lines. He had been signed into his Facebook through his iPhone, and the Best Buy employee had hacked it and posted statuses as if it were him. The man said it's stressful for him to have to explain to just about everybody in his Facebook friends that it wasn't true and that it wasn't him posting those things. Just goes to show how people can trust whats said on the internet as long as your name and face is next to it. Anyway, I feel that Facebook does not make you lonely, but I can very well see how one could stay isolated while Facebooking for hours.
    Summer H

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  13. The article was very persuasive, seeing as I could identify with a vast majority of the points made, but there was one study that the article talked about that I felt was untrue. The "Who Uses Facebook?" study done in Australia contended with the issue of how family life is brought into play on Facebook. The study says that those with Facebook accounts use it more to keep in close contact with friends, bringing them further apart from their family. I, however, use Facebook more with my family than with my friends. My family members and I post on each others walls and tag photos of ourselves, which ultimately brings us closer. Whenever we are out together without a member of our family, we post pictures of the event on Facebook, in hopes that they will feel less left out. The dynamic comparison of being alone and being lonely expressed throughout the article is very strongly opinionated.

    Rachel Hanchuruck

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  14. This article was a very well thought out point of how these websites are separating us from the rest of the world. I do use Facebook, but when people go and add a friend and they have no idea who they are, it doesn't make any sense. When I use Facebook I use it to stay in contact with my cousins who live far away or family members i only might see once or twice a year. In my personal opinion I believe that there are people that spend their whole life on Facebook, but then there are also the people that rarely go on it and still have lives. I am some what torn between this argument, because it depends on how much you use and are on Facebook.

    Dylan Carleton
    Period 5

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  15. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  16. I don't believe that social networking websites such as Facebook make people lonely. Like the author said, it all depends on how someone uses it. If a person uses Facebook to connect with their friends then it definitely helps him or her become more social. But if someone just scrolls through it looking at others' lives that are better than his or her own, it can certainly be depressing and make the person feel lonely.
    Brooke Dedushi P. 5

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