Essay Final Draft

In order to write about social media and my identity I have put through it, it is important to understand what social media means. One thing is that compared to the tradition word “media” social media is not really media. In reality social media is more of a communication place, a place for interacting with other people and a platform of networking. While the media how it used to be referred as such as television, radio, and print were designed to deliver ads as long as using relevant content with those ads. So they vital difference here is that social media is a place for communicating and relationships not a place for ads.

            Now with this in mind I want to bring up the movie “The Social Network”. It is a movie about how Facebook came to be. I personally really like the movie and would suggest it to anyone who is curious about it, but in the movie one of the big conflicts was based around the fact of money. Mark Zuckerberg (the founder of Facebook) and his friends were having constant arguments on when to allow ads onto there website. Now Mark’s friends put the money in from Mark to make the website so it was obvious why they wanted to put ads on right away so they were able to get there money back. Mark on the other hand wanted to wait so people could understand that his website was made for people to keep in social connection with each other, and he didn’t want people to think that it was about making money. So back to the point I made in the paragraph above, what we call social media now was made for communication not as a source of media. People through time has changed that from “social network” and got it confused with “social media”

            There are many types of social networking out there and I personally don’t care about any of them. I did have a MySpace and I do have a Facebook. Did I want either of them? No. In middle school when people started to get MySpace accounts I never wanted one, but it became soon obvious that if you didn’t have a MySpace that means you were out of the groups. In order to not feel left out I was forced to make a MySpace then going into high school when Facebook became much more popular I tried again just not to get into it. I stopped getting on MySpace and I said I wasn’t making a Facebook. As time went on this proved to be a harder and harder task as more people communicated through Facebook I was left out of several things. Then even the school started to use Facebook and Twitter to communicate with students and say important things like upcoming events and homework. So eventually the inevitable happened.

I had to just on the bandwagon and get a Facebook.

            The reason I dislike Facebook is because I feel like it is fake. Because as time goes on people try to get as many “friends as possible” and this can lead to a fake life. The point of this paper is to talk about our Digital Identities. Since you make this digital identity you can make it the way you want yourself to be. By taking out parts you may personally not like. Now the majority of people most likely do not even realizing they are doing this. But it is almost impossible to avoid. You are spreading your ideal you, which some people might not view as bad, but I think it is a terrible thing because to fully understand and know someone you have to know the little things about them. Like the facial expressions they make, how they say certain things, and several other things. All those type of things are taken away when you talk to someone in the Facebook world.

            Facebook also takes away some vital communication skills. Through communication on Facebook you have all the time in the world to think on the spot, this takes away from being able to have a back to forth conversation with someone. You are not able to physically see how what you say effects people when you type it down on Facebook, this can lead to someone saying mean things to people and hurting them without even trying to and not meaning to at all.

            My Digital life is actually pretty difficult to say exactly, because of how much I don’t like it. I looked at my timeline to see my activity and this I thought this really proves how little I do on Facebook, besides just check to see what is going on. Since April I have made 1 status changed, and that is it. Everything else has been me replying to other people’s messages or replying on comments that I was involved in. I have owned a Facebook for over 5 years and I have never uploaded a picture to Facebook. Every picture I have used has been from me getting tagged from pictures other people have uploaded. I change my profile picture around 2 to 3 times a year and the only reason I do that is so people think 

             I look like this                                     Instead of this                                                                

                  

I was actually planning on deleting my Facebook account once I went to college but guess what? I need to have some sort of social networking account for this class.

            Now I know many people love Facebook as I want to spend the time to talk about why do people like Facebook? What positive things has Facebook done for us?  Some people like it because they like to follow celebrities. Others use it so they are able to stay up to date with current events. Then there are people that just want to meet other people that have common interest, but if you take all those reasons an add them up, it still is less then the number one reason why people use Facebook. The number one reason is because their friends like it. So I know there are many people that have gone through the same situation that I have.

So the question is, is society becoming slaves to Facebook? In many ways I say yes. People being pressured almost forced to use it. Then to use it, it pretty much tries to convince you to give out all of your information. Also it makes you want to do certain things. Pose or do things in real life in order for someone or even yourself to be able to talk about it on Facebook and make people thing that you “cool” or whatever you want. Also it is addicting, I know people that just go crazy if they are not able to check their Facebook.  There has been a study done by the International Center for Media & the Public Agenda and the University of Maryland that they say proves Facebook withdraw. People don’t check it for a day can feel isolated and be craving to check (much like drug withdraw). They also found people who said that they would start to itch, and would ruin their day if they couldn’t get on. Some of their studies found people that said they couldn’t help but typing in Facebook whenever they looked at their phones it was built into the muscle memory of their fingers (mobiledia). This scares me how Facebook can be controlling over the human body and force people to feel certain ways and make them want or have to get on it to check it.

Now I cannot argue against Facebook without knowing the other side. I am open-minded to the fact that Facebook has many great things it can do for the world even. President campaigns are now expanding through social networking sites. It helps people know about foreign affairs, which allows people the knowledge to do more and to help more. Facebook helped spread the awareness of the earthquakes and tsunamis that hit Japan and since the awareness was raised, more and more people sent donations as help. I also know that there are almost countless other ways that Facebook can help society and even help the world.

            My problem is that I do not see enough people using these good aspects of Facebook. There are just too many people using it just to post about pointless things and to many people just sitting their posting bathroom mirror pictures. This is why my opinion of Facebook is negative. Can it change? Yes if people start using Facebook to its real potential then Facebook has the potential to be one of the greatest things invented mankind, but as of right now I view this and all other social networking sites as a downfall of humanity.

Is google making us stupid?

Now I am just going to start off saying I can understand both sides. In a way Google makes us stupid because we use it so much that we don’t understand the basic knowledge of things that we really should know. Like if I had no idea how to boil water (which every 19 year old should know how to do) I could type it up on Google right now in fact I did and this is what I got

Now if you look at it like this… then yea Google is turning us into morons. But then there is the other side of Google. The side that I personally think is just simply amazing.

Google allows us to carry a library of almost infinite knowledge on hour laptops. We are able to look up anything we want! The uses of this are endless.

Google also has also has many things that I believe has changed the world like Google maps. If I want to see what houses in Russia or Italy look like. I can just get on my computer and get a real life picture of a house. You can even look at people and see how they dress if you really want to.

Now I understand that there are the people that use Google like complete idiots, but I believe that the majority of people are using Google like how it is suppose to be used, thus giving people the access to things they never thought possible and they can learn about anything and everything a person could possibly want to learn about.

Essay Roughdraft

In order to write about social media and my identity I have put through it, it is important to understand what social media means. One thing is that compared to the tradition word “media” social media is not really media. In reality social media is more of a communication place, a place for interacting with other people and a platform of networking. While the media how it used to be referred as such as television, radio, and print were designed to deliver ads as long as using relevant content with those ads. So they vital difference here is that social media is a place for communicating and relationships not a place for ads.

            Now with this in mind I want to bring up the movie “The Social Network”. It is a movie about how Facebook came to be. I personally really like the movie and would suggest it to anyone who is curious about it, but in the movie one of the big conflicts was based around the fact of money. Mark Zuckerberg (the founder of Facebook) and his friends were having constant arguments on when to allow ads onto there website. Now Mark’s friends put the money in from Mark to make the website so it was obvious why they wanted to put ads on right away so they were able to get there money back. Mark on the other hand wanted to wait so people could understand that his website was made for people to keep in social connection with each other, and he didn’t want people to think that it was about making money. So back to the point I made in the paragraph above, what we call social media now was made for communication not as a source of media. People through time has changed that from “social network” and got it confused with “social media”

            There are many types of social networking out there and I personally don’t care about any of them. I did have a MySpace and I do have a Facebook. Did I want either of them? No. In middle school when people started to get MySpace accounts I never wanted one, but it became soon obvious that if you didn’t have a MySpace that means you were out of the groups. In order to not feel left out I was forced to make a MySpace then going into high school when Facebook became much more popular I tried again just not to get into it. I stopped getting on MySpace and I said I wasn’t making a Facebook. As time went on this proved to be a harder and harder task as more people communicated through Facebook I was left out of several things. Then even the school started to use Facebook and Twitter to communicate with students and say important things like upcoming events and homework. So eventually the inevitable happened.

I had to just on the bandwagon and get a Facebook.

            My Digital life is actually pretty difficult to say exactly, because of how much I don’t like it. I looked at my timeline to see my activity and this I thought this really proves how little I do on Facebook, besides just check to see what is going on. Since April I have made 1 status changed, and that is it. Everything else has been me replying to other people’s messages or replying on comments that I was involved in. I have owned a Facebook for over 5 years and I have never uploaded a picture to Facebook. Every picture I have used has been from me getting tagged from pictures other people have uploaded. I change my profile picture around 2 to 3 times a year and the only reason I do that is so people think      

I look like this                            Instead of this

                     

  

I was actually planning on deleting my Facebook account once I went to college but guess what? I need to have some sort of social networking account for this class.

            Now I know many people love Facebook as I want to spend the time to talk about why do people like Facebook? What positive things has Facebook done for us?  Some people like it because they like to follow celebrities. Others use it so they are able to stay up to date with current events. Then there are people that just want to meet other people that have common interest, but if you take all those reasons an add them up, it still is less then the number one reason why people use Facebook. The number one reason is because their friends like it. So I know there are many people that have gone through the same situation that I have.

So the question is, is society becoming slaves to Facebook? In many ways I say yes. People being pressured almost forced to use it. Then to use it, it pretty much tries to convince you to give out all of your information.

            Now I cannot argue against Facebook without knowing the other side. I am open-minded to the fact that Facebook has many great things it can do for the world even. President campaigns are now expanding through social networking sites. It helps people know about foreign affairs, which allows people the knowledge to do more and to help more. Facebook helped spread the awareness of the earthquakes and tsunamis that hit Japan and since the awareness was raised, more and more people sent donations as help. I also know that there are almost countless other ways that Facebook can help society and even help the world.

            My problem is that I do not see enough people using these good aspects of Facebook. There are just too many people using it just to post about pointless things and to many people just sitting their posting bathroom mirror pictures. This is why my opinion of Facebook is negative. Can it change? Yes if people start using Facebook to its real potential then Facebook has the potential to be one of the greatest things invented mankind, but as of right now I view this and all other social networking sites as a downfall of humanity.

Rhetorical

Lloyd had a lot of points and examples through this article and I mean a lot, he used so many examples in order to make sure we know what he is trying to say but it was too much. He pretty much took a great paper and butchered it with example. It offends me that he posted his article like that and it just is simple mistake that went out of control that just completely changed the outcome of the paper.

But anyway he was trying to do is explain how rhetorical is how we communicate with anyone it is how we argue. Even if you don’t realize you are using this, you are. It happens whenever you are talking to another person. It is important to know the rhetorical is like persuasion. You have to pick an emotion; based on what scenario you are in. You need to know what tone to use, and you have to be ready to argue for what you are trying to say. One of the pain points in this article is that one of the main things that effects rhetorical situations is the audience. Deciding which aspect to use is all based on whom you are talking to. Even this blog is using these situations to speak to my audience, which are fellow students and a professor. Another point he made was how people are able to take these rhetorical situations and can change them and alter them in order to manipulate people reading it and make them feel certain ways.

I didn’t really view this article as a huge informational article, to me this article really focused on how to use rhetorical situations. He showed us this through many of those examples, and he talked about how it can be used for things like manipulations of how they feel, how they view things, how they will think, and what you want people to learn from it. Now that gives me the question that if he knew all this he definitely used it in this article. Now maybe he wrote so many example and things like that trying to prove some point on how he is manipulating us. If he was then it went well over my head and I didn’t get it but I understand that there is the potential.