Critical

Throughout the article, the author showcases the negative impacts that social media, Facebook in particular, has on society today. Harris makes the claim that Facebook and social media in general encourages people to lead dishonest lives on their social media for attention and gratification. He used different data polls and statistics to get this point across. For example, Harris referenced data from a survey a research company titled OnePoll had conducted in which he stated that “Nearly 30% of women lied about doing something when they were really home alone, and 20% were not truthful about their holiday activities or their jobs.”. He also covers the fact that Facebook has “broke traditional human behavior” stating that it has caused people to continuously act out a life that is not theirs. He states that it is normal human nature to take a break from performing a life they want to have to others, but Facebook has diminished that break and has taken over the lives of its users. Harris also seems to stress the fact that Facebook users also lead their own lives under the influence of other users that seem to have a larger following. As he makes this claim he references David Kirkpatrick, “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.” showing the readers directly how peer pressure is applied in this case. Through these statistics and references Harris makes his argument clear and gives more substance to this article forcing the reader to really think about the negative effects of social media on human life today.

Personal

As a social media user, I feel that the platforms I use have more positive impacts on my life than negative. I started using social media around the time that I started high school and did not really post much until recently. Through the social media platforms I use such as Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter I feel like I have learned a lot generally about global issues, ideologies and cultures. Social Media also has taught me a lot about myself and the people around me. I feel personally that social media gives ordinary people a chance to voice their opinions about social issues they deem important to them, opening the eyes of others that may have not even known about that particular issue. For example, Twitter does a great job at this. Twitter allows for people to tweet and retweet posts sharing them quicker and allowing for more conversation about controversial issues through comments and such. Whereas social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat are mainly used to share day to day life activities and or feelings. At least that is how I use them. However, I feel like I tend to be more active on Snapchat as I only really have close friends rather than Instagram in which I have a following of people that I know but probably do not talk to on a day to day basis. At times social media does become overwhelming and is hard to keep up with but I honestly do not really care about likes or comments on my posts personally, I’m more the type of person that likes to be socially aware of what is going on around me and feel that social media is the best way to achieve that.