Draft #1 of Argumentative Essay
Yechan Bae
English 21003, Section M
Professor Matyakubova
15 March, 2018
First Draft of Argumentative Report
Social Network? Or an Anti-Social
Network?
In
the internet society today, it is very difficult to find someone who does not
have a social media account. Phone carriers competing for faster internet speed
and smart phone companies inventing new filters and better camera for
Instagram, the world has become very dependent on social media for
communication and entertainment that it is difficult to believe that Facebook,
the major social network site, was founded just 12 years ago. With the majority
of the global population heavily relying on social networking sites for
communication and entertainment, research suggest that social media obstruct
freedom of speech, cause depression, and brings the risk of danger due to the
lack of privacy.
The
Oxford Dictionary defines social media as “websites and applications
that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social
networking.” Now, social media has grown from just being a source of
entertainment to being a source for news and communication as well.
The
history of social media does not trace itself too far back, as the first social
networking sites, MySpace and Linkedln, gained prominence in the early 2000s.
In 2006, a 22 year old undergraduate of Harvard University founded the most
popular social networking site in the world today, Facebook. Facebook has grown
from having 12 million active users in 2006 to having more than two billion
active users by 2017 (Addweek). Following
the invention of Facebook, other social networking sites followed, including,
Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Snapchat.
Not promoting freedom of speech
With
more than 81 percent of people having a social media account in America alone,
social media has become a popular place of communication (Statista, 2017). As the first amendment of the United States
constitution suggests, it is a matter of big importance whether social media
promotes the freedom of speech.
Samantha
Goodyear, a writer in the Huffington Post, describes social media as a place
that gives people “so much freedom” (Goodyear, 2014). In her article in the
Huffington Post, she defines social media as an environment where people
encourage each other and share stories. She further explains that this freedom of
voice on the internet is a “powerful feeling” and that “it is [a] really
important” feeling (Goodyear, 2014). While it is definitely agreeable that the
freedom of voice should be encouraged for people as much as possible,
Goodyear’s conclusion that social media promotes freedom of speech is a
misleading and an invalid statement.
Dr. Jeff Nalin, a clinical psychologist and a
chemical dependency intervention specialist, explains that social media is a
major cause of depression as well as decreasing social skills for people
(Nalin, no date provided). The reason for this is because social media has
become a place where people “only highlight their best moments” as they “want
to show off to the world when posting online” (Nalin). With this fact that
social media is a censored gathering of only positive thoughts and events, it
is invalid to say that social media promotes freedom to people. There is no
freedom in social media, as “even though everyone has problems, people don’t
like to post the negative events of their lives online” since everything in the
newsfeed suggests that everyone else is having a great time (Nalin). Rather,
this fact that social media is only filled with positive events and thoughts causing
to discourage people to post negative thoughts, it brings up another major
problem, Depression.
Depression
The
oxford dictionary defines depression as “a mental condition characterized by
feelings of severe despondency and dejection.” As mentioned earlier, having
clarified that social media is a censored place of only positive sharing, one
going through a hard time finds it extremely devastating when social media
shows that all other friends seem to be having a great time. Because of this, one
is left with no choice but to hide the feelings and unable to share the
troubles he or she is going through to other people (Anxiety and Depression Association of America). Among the many side
effects of depression when untreated, the most severe follow-ups include:
suicide, self-injury, and relationship problems.
Danger due to the lack of privacy
As
social networking has become one of the most mainstream activities, the topic
of privacy is an indispensable subject in discussing today’s “information age” (Madden, 2012). Social media cites and applications constantly require and
ask its users to update one’s general information, such as age, gender, and
nationality, to even more private and personal information, such as address,
phone number, and hobbies. The social media cites constantly sends
notifications to their users for informational update, as well as suggesting to
post a new status by asking “What’s on your mind?”, and creating the social
media trend such as “Throw Back Thursdays,” where people are encouraged to
upload an old photo of themselves or their friends.
In
2010, at the Crunchie awards in San Francisco, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of
Facebook, expressed that privacy was no longer a social norm and that with
breaking the privacy, people become closer and friendship become more intimate
(Johnson, 2010). In his speech, he explained how people are comfortable sharing
their personal information to public and that “social norm is just something
that has evolved over time” (Zuckerberg, 2010). Truly enough, the limitations
of privacy in the social media has drastically sunken, as the New York Times’
headline of the article in October 4, 2014 expressed the thoughts of the social
media users, “We want privacy, but can’t stop sharing.” With 2.13 billion
monthly active Facebook users, with an average of 510,000 comments, 293,000
statutes, and 136,000 photos being uploaded daily, Facebook is a place where a
huge amount of public and private information is being shared and communicated
(Noyes, 2018).
While
the idea of sharing one’s personal information to the public might be
considered as the social norm, having one’s information available in a public
place can also be a factor for danger, possibly causing the person to become a
victim of stalking with no awareness of the potential risk that follows. In
March 2009, a Korean family residing in the Philippines experienced traumatic
stalking as well as receiving threatening messages. The victimized family is a
family of my own, and the story was testified by my father, Kichang Bae,
interviewed by myself in March 14, 2018. The one who performed the victimizing
was a Filipino male who worked for our family as a driver. After being fired
from the job, the anger lead the person to stalk our family on Facebook and to
attain the family’s personal information such as their address, phone number,
and the name of the school the kids were attending. Having these information,
the ex-driver sent threatening messages to the family, letting them know that
he is aware where they live and what school the kids go to. Fortunately,
nothing that the ex-driver threatened achieved real life consequences, however,
the following 6 months was terrifying for the family. This specific example
that my family experienced explains the level of danger the lack of privacy in
social media can cause. In this case, Facebook happened to help the perpetrator
to stalk and attain the information necessary for threatening. Although the
founder of Facebook explains that the lack of privacy in social media sites is
a social norm people have to accept, the danger and risk that follow are too
dangerous and unpredictable.
Works
Cited
Goodyear, Samantha. “The Power of Social
Media.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com,
1 May 2014, www.huffingtonpost.com/samantha-goodyear/the- power-of-social-media_3_b_5161138.html.
Nalin, Jeff. “Social Media and Teen Depression:
The Two Go Hand-In-Hand.” Social Media and Teen Depression: The Two Go Hand-In-Hand, Anxiety and
Depression Association of America,
adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/consumer/social-media- and-teen-depression-two-go-hand.
“U.S. Population with a Social Media Profile
2017.” Statista, www.statista.com/statistics/273476 /percentage-of-us-population-with-a-social-network-profile/.
Staff, Adweek. “Mapping Facebook's Growth Over
Time.” – Adweek, Adweek, 19 Aug. 2008, www.adweek.com/digital/mapping-facebooks-growth-over-time/.
“Social Media | Definition of Social Media in
English by Oxford Dictionaries.” Oxford Dictionaries | English,
Oxford Dictionaries, en.oxforddictionaries.com/definitions/social _media.
“Global Time Spent on Social Media Daily
2017.” Statista, www.statista.com/statistics/433871/
daily-social-media-usage-worldwide/.
Johnson, Bobbie. “Privacy No Longer a
Social Norm, Says Facebook Founder.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 10 Jan. 2010,
www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/jan/11/
facebook-privacy.
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