1a. The news article “Death of the private self: how fifteen years of Facebook changed the human condition” by John Harris, the main argument is that Facebook is causing people to change the way they actually are. Its causing people to change the way they actually are by perfecting the pictures they post or by being on their phones all day trying to message friends asking what classes there in. In the news article, it states “As David Kirkpatrick’s definitive history The Facebook Effect explains, users of the new site began to fixate on perfecting the details of their profile, not just to date, but to make themselves more attractive as potential friends.” This is an ongoing thing today as well, people take hundreds of pictures and then narrow it down to a couple good ones and then they put filters on it to make it more appealing to other people. The person that people find online is sometimes not the person that they meet in person. The article also stated, “Since everyone’s classes were listed, some students even began selecting what they studied in order to project a certain image of themselves. And many definitely selected classes based on who Thefacebook indicated would be joining them there.” People instead of focusing on what classes might be the right fit for them began choosing classes with people that they wanted to talk to. If Facebook wasn’t there they would have met new people and made more friends and connections which would have given them better opportunities later on.

1b. My life has really been affected by social media because almost every day I spend at least seven hours on my phone going through various social media platforms. When I am trying to complete an assignment I usually end up wasting time by using my phone which causes me to finish a one-hour homework assignment in about three hours. I first signed up for social media when I was 8 years old, I was in middle school and my cousin helped me set it up. Back then you couldn’t sign up for Facebook if you were under 18, so I lied and now I am around 40 years old on Facebook. I do not really post much on social media, I usually only share posts or respond to messages, or even just do streaks on Snapchat. However, my friends usually get all dressed up and take pictures while in school they would just wear sweats or hoodies with shorts. I guess they want to make people that they never met to have a good impression when they actually meet in person.