Louis CK video on Conan in which Louis CK criticizes smartphone addiction.
"Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?"
"How Social Media Is Having a Positive Impact on Our Culture"
Essay Option That Compares Sherry Turkle's Critique with Jessica Bennett's "The Flip Side of Internet Fame":
Drawing largely from Sherry Turkle's Ted Talk presentation and her book Alone Together, show how Turkle's description of social media-fueled pathology informs the shark-like frenzy of online shaming chronicled in Bennett's essay.
Sample Thesis Template:
Sherry Turkle's masterful, cogent grasp of the loneliness, anxiety, and arrested development brought on by social media addiction helps us understand Jessica Bennett's "The Flip Side of Internet Fame" in many ways, including ________________, ____________, ________________, and _________________.
Your Annotated Bibliography
Your annotated bibliography, like your Works Cited page, shows your sources (in this case 5) in alphabetical order.
Under each listing, you need 3 paragraphs:
Provide a concise summary.
Show the significance or quality of the source (authority, credibility, thoroughness, relevance).
Explain the source's purpose or usefulness for supporting your thesis.
Use Present Verb Tense for Argument Research Paper and Textual Analysis
Sample MLA Research Paper Uses Present Tense
Study Questions
One. What is so pathological about needing to be tethered (always being leashed or connected to your social media)?
See page 171 in which we see the compulsion to see contact updates (being tethered or connected to smartphone) is so strong many sacrifice driving and walking safety, resulting in bruises, chipped teeth, even death.
On a level of anecdote this is true, but how pervasive is this pathological behavior?
See distraction injuries.
See car accidents.
People are degraded by our social media addiction in these ways:
People want to be interrupted. They are waiting for it. This speaks to a particular type of desperation.
There is no downtime. Therefore, there is no solitude, which is necessary for processing experience and information. Most importantly, as Turkle observes in her Ted Talk, solitude is the prerequisite for intimacy and connection with others.
Everything is rapid response without reflection. We lose our humanity.
Emoticons simplify who we are and strip us of nuance and complexity.
We lose the boundary between public and private life, sharing smartphone photos around the room.
The adolescent is denied alone time, a necessary rite of passage for independence. Instead of independence, the teenager becomes needy for approval and attention.
We have new emotional expectations. I know a young man who is mad at Facebook because his Facebook friends were either not commenting at all or enough at his posts.
We develop an unbalanced need for the validation of others rather than from our inner strength. See page 176
Being tethered makes us narcissistic as we read on page 177: “. . . one speaks about narcissism not to indicate people who love themselves, but a personality so fragile that it needs constant support. It cannot tolerate the complex demands of other people but tries to relate to them by distorting who they are and splitting off what it needs, what it can use. So, the narcissistic self gets on with others by dealing only with their made-to-measure representations.”
See Facebook Validation essay.
And Seeking Validation.
Narcissism Linked to Frequent Facebook and Twitter Use
Does Facebook Promote Narcissism?
Does Facebook and Other Social Media Encourage Narcissism?
Does Facebook Turn People Into Narcissists?
More and more young people are only “speaking” online at the exclusion of everything else. As a result, we are becoming more disconnected and more lonely.
See Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?
Social Networking: Failure to Connect
Social Media Decreases Loneliness
We see on page 179 that when the self is compartmentalized or fragmented in so many online spaces, it does not mature but stays juvenile, immature, narcissistic.
Multitasking Leads to Anxiety and Depression
We’re open to Facebook annihilation. One of my friends broke up with his girlfriend of 5 years. They shared dozens, perhaps hundreds of Facebook friends. He decided it was too awkward to keep his Facebook account and engaged in “Facebook annihilation,” deleting his account to avoid the awkwardness. This kind of thing didn’t happen a hundred years ago.
Minute preferences—for books and movies to name a couple of examples—become blown out of proportion in terms of one’s profile. Do the others approve of these preferences? Too much is at stake for these minute choices.
People are “always on” for their Facebook friends, so their life becomes a never-ending avatar performance.
This “Second Life” on Facebook takes over their real life. See page 193.
Two. What Are the Causes of Phone Fatigue?
People feel more protected “on the screen,” that is to say texting or IMing.
People feel more in control of their image communicating “on the screen.”
People are too tired for phone conversation after all their multitasking.
Calling others might be looked at as “too demanding” and needy. Peer pressure says, "Don't be a caller; be a texter."
Calling might be perceived as urgent, pumped up to a level that is not true. If you call, you've lost your cool facade.
Calling violates the rules of efficiency.
Calling has “insufficient boundaries,” that is the call could get messy, complicated, dramatic, time-consuming, in short an unappealing prospect.
Calling others requires full attention and we’ve become accustomed to having only partial attention.
Examining Facebook Addiction
McMahon's the 10 Signs That Facebook Has Become a Self-Destructive Chimera and You Should Probably Delete Your Facebook Account
1. You start “sharing” increasing gradations of meaningless trivia with your “friends” like what kind of dog food you purchased, what kind of nail polish you’re using before vacationing in Maui, how taking Omega-3 fish oil capsules makes you burp, etc.
2. You’re spending 18 hours a day “managing” your friends’ comments ("No one has commented on my juicy entry that was posted almost 30 minutes ago. Damn them all!") and losing more perspective on what’s important in your life like getting out of the house, making real friends, and embarking on something truly creative.
3. You become paranoid as to why a “friend” deleted you from his or her friends list and start losing sleep over why more and more Facebook people are deleting you from their existence.
4. You become jealous and resentful when you see a “friend” commenting on someone’s “boring” post but that same person ignored your more “interesting” post.
5. You start competing with your other Facebook “friends” for amassing more and more friends and comments.
6. You fret when none of your Facebook friends wish you Happy Birthday.
7. You obsess over the fact that one of your lifelong friends is engaging in more Facebook activity with a new Facebook acquaintance who has demoted your friendship ranking.
8. You lose Facebook friends because you don’t reciprocate their offers to play Bubble Shooter, Pokemon Tower Defense, Trollface Launch, Whack Your Boss, and other games that require too much time for anyone who is gainfully employed.
9. You become a Facebook snob, rejecting friend invitations from people who have fewer than 300 Facebook friends.
10. You become a Facebook elitist only accepting friend invitations from people who have a bare minimum of a Masters Degree, share your political beliefs, and have published or produced a work of art that was reviewed by a major publication.
See Facebook Fatigue
See Facebook Fatigue--It's Real
Maybe the above links hurt the author's argument because they suggest we have a self-correcting mechanism that makes us move on when we've saturated ourselves with something. Maybe we've reached the saturation point.
But think again. A study says Facebook Fatigue Is Setting But Other Social Media Is Growing.
So perhaps other social media simply take the place of the old stuff even though the "new stuff" is the same as the old.
Sample A Introduction and Thesis in Support of Turkle
Recently I wrote something mildly amusing on Facebook about my twins, how they preferred to be lazy and take the elevator rather than be strong and take the stairs as I had urged them, and I started getting a torrent of “likes” and comments. I found myself checking my Facebook status more often than necessary to monitor the growing attention my post was getting and I realized I was enjoying a pathetic dopamine ego massage from all the adulation I was receiving. I was, for a brief while anyway, Facebook’s King of the Mountain and Super Funny Man, a talented force who no doubt, my post proved, could have made a handsome living doing the stand-up comedy circuit.
And then it hit me. I am pathetic. I am woefully and egregiously needy. I am a disgusting wretch who’s allowed the technology of his time, social media and Facebook specifically, to ratchet up his neediness.
Gloating over all my perceived exaltation was not a sign of my wit and strength. To the contrary, it showed how bereft and pathetically trivial my life had become. I was yet another pathological pawn in the social media game, trying to connect with my Facebook friends when in fact I was “together” on Facebook but woefully alone, or as Sherry Turkle’s book succinctly puts it, I was another casualty in the social media’s merciless mouth, a member of those who are Alone Together. Turkle’s book of the same title remarkably analyzes the way technology has changed who we are degrading us in many ways, not the least of which is ______________, ___________, ______________, ________________, and __________________.
Another Successful Example
I am a nineteen-year-old student taking McMahon’s English 1A class, which features a final essay, the most heavily weighted essay in class, about the dangers of social media. I belong to a generation immured in Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Vine, to mention a few. Is McMahon’s choice of book, Alone Together, an implicit excoriation of my generation? The book in question, by MIT professor Sherry Turkle, sounds off the alarm bells about the grave dangers of social media: It’s addictive; it makes us dumb; it disconnects us from others; it makes us insecure narcissists. The alleged weaknesses of Turkl’s argument are several and include the following: Because social media is such a new phenomenon, we don’t have any long-term data to support her claims; her extreme anecdotes point to outliers but not mainstream users of social media and we can always find outliers in any category of human behavior; her zeal to wean us off social media blinds her to its benefits for those of us who are not pathologically addicted to it; technophobe and Luddite arguments have been around for centuries and they always prove to be shrill, paranoid overreactions to inevitable change. Having examined these criticisms in the face of a careful reading of the book, I have concluded that Turkle has written a legitimate, relevant, and compelling argument, supported by empirical research and sound logic, about the ways social media is destroying, not a fringe, but a pervasive segment of society in the realm of addiction, physical injury, narcissism, dehumanization, attention deficit disorder, and generalized loneliness.
Sample B Intro and Thesis Against Turkle
Is MIT professor Sherry Turkle, author of Alone Together, a healthy voice in the wilderness decrying the pathologies of social media or is she a shrill technophobe alarming us to the coming Technological Dystopia? As a nineteen-year-old college student, am I well served by heeding the vivid warnings in Turkle’s polemic? I doubt it, for while Turkle does a good job of showing the variety of pathologies engendered by social media, her argument collapses under the weight of her one-sided bias, her excessive focus on extreme, outlier anecdotes, her Procrustean exposition (picking only the data that serves your purposes and ignoring the data that contradicts your claims) forcing a narrative of dystopian madness to fit into her rigid, preconceived thesis; and her lack of access to any real long-term studies to give us an accurate, objective look at the alleged self-destructiveness from social media.
The above would be an A; however, it suffers from mapping overlap. Let's try to fix it.
Here's an A grade Revision
Is MIT professor Sherry Turkle, author of Alone Together, a healthy voice in the wilderness decrying the pathologies of social media or is she a shrill technophobe alarming us to the coming Technological Dystopia? As a nineteen-year-old college student, am I well served by heeding the vivid warnings in Turkle’s polemic? I doubt it, for while Turkle does a good job of showing the variety of pathologies engendered by social media, her argument collapses under the weight of her one-sided bias, her excessive focus on extreme, outlier anecdotes, her rigid either/or fallacy regarding the worthiness of the Internet; her confusion with correlation and causation; her willful ignorance of Sturgeon's Law to push her over-simplistic argument, and her lack of access to any real long-term studies to give us an accurate, objective look at the alleged self-destructiveness from social media.
Balanced Critique of Alone Together from NYT
Most Common Error Last Essay: Pronoun Shifts and Agreement
We suffer learned helplessness when you feel like everything you do is a failure. A person suffering from helplessness will often have delusions that destroy all their efforts. When one feels helpless, we must exercise the Third Eye so you can see your problems from an objective distance. When a person has the Third Eye, they are able to develop strategies to transcend their sense of recurring futility.
Another Example
When a person repeatedly checks their status on Facebook, they develop an addiction that can result in you spending over twelve hours a day checking on your "status." We live in an age in which social media dominates our lives. Your self-esteem too often is affected by the amount or lack of attention you're getting while posting on Facebook. We need to step back, process what we're doing, and realize we're only hurting ourselves. So next time you get the urge to go on Facebook, think again. One's sanity depends on it.
Faulty Pronoun Error Reference
Different Types of Pronoun Errors
Subordination and Coordination (Complex and Compound Sentences)
Complex Sentence
A complex sentence has two clauses. One clause is dependent or subordinate; the other clause is independent, that is to say, the independent clause is the complete sentence.
Examples:
While I was tanning in Hermosa Beach, I noticed the clouds were playing hide and seek.
Because I have a tendency to eat entire pizzas, inhaling them within seconds, I must avoid that fattening food.
Whenever I’m driving my car and I see people texting while driving, I stop my car on the side of the road.
I have to workout every day because I am addicted to exercise-induced dopamine.
I feel overcome with a combination of romantic melancholy and giddy excitement whenever there is a thunderstorm.
We use subordination to show cause and effect. To create subordinate clauses, we must use a subordinate conjunction:
The essential ingredient in a complex sentence is the subordinate conjunction:
|
after |
once |
until |
I workout too much. I have tenderness in my elbow.
Because I workout too much, I suffer tenderness in my elbow.
My elbow hurts. I’m working out.
Even though my elbow hurts, I’m working out.
We use coordination to show equal rank of ideas. To combine sentences with coordination we use FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so)
The calculus class has been cancelled. We will have to do something else.
The calculus class has been cancelled, so we will have to do something else.
I want more pecan pie. They only have apple pie.
I want more pecan pie, but they only have apple pie.
Using FANBOYS creates compound sentences
Angelo loves to buy a new radio every week, but his wife doesn’t like it.
You have high cholesterol, so you have to take statins.
I am tempted to eat all the rocky road ice cream, yet I will force myself to nibble on carrots and celery.
I want to go to the Middle Eastern restaurant today, and I want to see a movie afterwards.
I really like the comfort of elastic-waist pants, but wearing them makes me feel like an old man.
Both subordination and coordination combine sentences into smoother, clearer sentences.
The following four sentences are made smoother and clearer with the help of subordination:
McMahon felt gluttonous. He inhaled five pizzas. He felt his waist press against his denim waistband in a cruel, unforgiving fashion. He felt an acute ache in his stomach.
Because McMahon felt gluttonous, he inhaled five pizzas upon which he felt his waist press against his denim waistband resulting in an acute stomachache.
Another Example
Joe ate too much heavily salted popcorn. The saltiness made him thirsty. He consumed several gallons of water before bedtime. He was up going to the bathroom all night. He got a bad night’s sleep. He performed terribly during his job interview.
Due to his foolish consumption of salted popcorn, Joe was so thirsty he drank several gallons of water before bedtime, which caused him to go to the bathroom all night, interfering with his night’s sleep and causing him to do terribly on his job interview.
Another Example
Bob dropped his peanut butter sandwich in the tiger’s enclosure. He leaned over the fence to reach for his sandwich. He fell over the fence. A tiger approached Bob. The zookeeper ran between the stupid zoo customer and the wild beast. The zookeeper tore his rotator cuff.
After Bob dropped his peanut butter sandwich in the tiger’s enclosure, he leaned over the fence to recover his sandwich and fell into the enclosure during which time he was approached by a hungry tiger, forcing the nearby zookeeper to run between Bob and wild beast. During the struggle, the zookeeper tore his rotator cuff.
Don’t Do Subordination Overkill
After Bob dropped his peanut butter sandwich in the tiger’s enclosure, he leaned over the fence to recover his sandwich and fell into the enclosure during which time he was approached by a hungry tiger forcing the nearby zookeeper to run between Bob and the wild beast in such a manner that the zookeeper tore his rotator cuff, which resulted in a prolonged disability leave and the loss of his job, a crisis that compelled the zookeeper to file a lawsuit against Bob for financial damages.
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