1. “Death of the private self: how fifteen years of Facebook changed the human condition” by John Harris, speaks about the potential affect Facebook has on human interaction and public lives. John begins the article by introducing the history of Facebook as a humble social media app used to connect college students in your daily lives. However, as John stresses, as Facebook grew so did its malicious affect on students by “fixat(ing)on perfecting the details of their profile, not just to date, but to make themselves more attractive as potential friends”( Harris, paragraph 3). Ultimately John believes this leads students to come “down to a handful of imperatives: “Find exactly the right profile picture. Change it regularly. Consider carefully how you describe your interests” ( Harris, paragraph 3). John fuels most his argument of the artificial image facebook creates, on logos – citing different statistics from reputable sources such as Custard ( marketing firm), Ofcom (Regulater) – to create a sense of validity and reliability to the audience. This artificial image that Facebook creates perishes the wall of public and private lives with deceit as we “human beings… work desperately hard on our outward presentation, and sometimes fall into a kind of performance that leads inexorably towards fibs” ( Harris, paragraph 9). Although John is able to create a seemingly strong argument, John’s inability to widen his scope of the argument leads to the creation of limits on the authenticity of his argument. Such limits include the exclusion of counter arguments ( positive statements on Facebook), the singular view on Facebook and not other social media cites, etc. By creating limits on, “Death of the private self:how fifteen years of Facebook changed the human condition”, John provides a one-sided argument and ultimately a flawed reasoning.

2. Reading “Death of the private self: how fifteen years of Facebook changed the Human condition” by John Harris was relatable and understanding. John’s points that – Facebook and social media in general – create a sense of unreality within users was both striking and true to an extent. In my personal life, I’ve witnessed those close to me also fixating on “posts” and images on social media to brand themselves in a higher light. Not only so however, I’ve also seen social media have an affect in obsessing or fixating users into their platforms rather than spending time in the real world. But I do believe that John has inability to mention the benefits social media may have. An example of such is LinkedIn, a social media platform ( owned by Facebook ironically) which aims to connection professionals looking for jobs, networking, etc. LinkedIn, although being a social media platform, has allowed me a vehicle in my career by showing relatable information on different industries and different industry leaders. From the start of my “social media life” when I was twelve to the present day, I’ve maintained the same usage of social media: to connect and to learn. My depiction of my life on social media is quite vague too, as I limit and separate my public and private life actively. Therefore I would argue that my life online does not have an accurate sense of my real life but rather is missing a sense of my real life.