Thesis Statement Variations for Essay on Sherry Turkle's Critique of Social Media
Final Essay
The essays in Chapter 6 address the alleged pathologies resulting from social media. These pathologies include an empathy deficit, narcissism, shortened attention span, online shaming, and even altered brain development.
In an argumentative essay, support, refute, or complicate the assertion that social media is harmful for our social, cultural and intellectual development. Be sure to address at least two essays from Chapter 6. One of the essays can be used as a source. You will need at least 4 other sources for a total of 5 sources.
Here are some thesis attempts:
Thesis 1
While I’ll concede that there are mindless consumers of social media who evidence the pathologies described by Sherry Turkle, her overall argument that society as a whole is replacing the full humanity of conversation for dehumanized connections is overstated when we consider that many of us are productively harnessing these technologies after an initial addiction phase, that many of us can embrace these technological connections without losing our conversational relationships (yes, we can chew gum and walk at the same time, Turkle), and that Sturgeon’s Law (90% of everything is crap) does not justify throwing away the “baby with the bathwater.”
Thesis 2
I am willing to concede that many of us can adapt to the gadgets that entice us into the world of social media. I will further concede that many of us can connect and converse simultaneously. However, let us not fool ourselves by minimizing the damage brought on by the juggernaut of social media. Let us instead take a close look at Turkle’s argument, that even mature, healthy-minded consumers of social media are being seduced into cheap connections that are degrading their empathy, friendships, self-reflection, solitude, and meaningful connections. Turkle’s argument holds up to the scrutiny of empirical evidence, rigorous research, sound logic, and keen psychological insight and encourages us to approach our gadgets with healthy moderation.
Thesis 3
The problem with addressing Turkle’s argument is that different age groups tend to react differently to social media. While most adults adapt to social media and eventually find a balance between superficial connections and deep conversation, youngsters and teenagers are the most vulnerable to the pathologies that result from social media addiction. Young people mired in social media are afflicted with the disease of fame, empathy loss, and mass shaming.
Thesis 4
We’ve always had mindless consumers, addicts, social degenerates, depressives, narcissists, dysfunctional solipsists, and the like. To use them as a reason to be weary of social media is a fallacy evident in Turkle’s argument, which is sodden with exaggeration, generational hostility toward Millennials, and oversimplifications.
Thesis 5
Through empirical research, cogent psychological insight, lucid logic, and compelling anecdotage, Turkle convincingly demonstrates that social media does not merely dehumanize society’s socially dysfunctional outliers but degrades even the best of us.
Thesis 6
Those who are quick to dismiss Turkle’s warning that we are becoming a culture of connectors, not real talkers, fail to grasp the underlying psychology that supports Turkle’s claim. The underlying psychology pertains to our default setting for the path of least resistance, our maladaptation for superficial online friendships, or what I call “low-hanging fruit,” and the economic and time demands that encourage us even further to be seduced by social media’s counterfeit, dehumanizing, time-saving friendships.
Thesis 7
It chafes me to see McMahon brainwash his students with the Sherry Turkle Kool-Aid, especially since my teacher is so egregiously misguided on this topic. For one, McMahon fails to see that while social media results in a certain amount of loneliness, depression, and narcissism, it's better than not having social media at all. Economic necessity and time limits push us into our social media as the communication of “last resort.” For another thing, McMahon, you or Sherry Turkle notwithstanding, the technology isn’t going to go away or to abate. To forego our gadgets would be to withdraw even deeper into the loneliness ecosphere and become social pariahs. The third thing that collapses your argument, McMahon, is that you fail to see that most of us since our infancy have been deprived of the interactive and linguistic skills to have the kind of conversations you and Turkle wish us to have. We are simply doing the best we can with the tools provided us. We are not, as Turkle is, privileged to enter some superior world of conversation. Finally, you need to face the fact that sometimes in life we take what we can get, even compromised, inferior versions of communication. If you and Turkle want to ride your little intellectual bromance and scold society for not living up to your conversational expectations, that’s on you. But I can tell you, most of us are contentedly acclimated to the social media gadgets we have and the limited communications that result from them. Don’t take away what little joys we have, and please mind your own business. Just a final reminder, McMahon: You promised not to give a bad grade to students who disagree with you, even someone who opposes you with the vehemence you see here. Here’s your chance for fairness, McMahon. Are you with me?
Thesis 8
The student who so vociferously objects to McMahon’s claim that social media results in social pathologies is profoundly misguided. To say that we should settle for compromised forms of social media connection is, contrary to McMahon’s high expectations for us, a form of self-debasement that makes McMahon cringe with sorrow and despair. Secondly, the student’s shrill and alarmist notion that fully realized conversation is a pastime reserved only for the privileged bourgeois is a fallacious argument disconnected from the empirical evidence that shows that since the beginning of time people of all economic stratums have been able to converse with detailed authenticity and meaningful connection. This acrimonious, unreasonable student is throwing a class-warfare canard at McMahon, and this student’s canard has hit the ground with a lame thud. Finally, McMahon’s argument is not, as the ill-advised student would have us believe, based on a “bromance” with Sherry Turkle; rather, McMahon wants his students to exercise moderation, prudence, and mindfulness in their social media activities so that they can cultivate the meaningful conversations they deserve.
The Atlantic article, "Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?" could be a research link.
Another worthy research link is The New Yorker article "How Facebook Makes Us Unhappy."
"The Empathy Deficit" by Keith O'Brien
One. What is the empathy deficit?
We read that Generation Wi-Fi, or specifically college students, today "are 40 percent less empathetic than they were in 1979, with the steepest decline coming in the last 10 years."
This lack of empathy results in the following:
A cold heart
No sympathy or compassion for those who suffer
No concern for others' misfortunes
Two. Why should we be concerned about the empathy deficit?
Cultures who score low on empathy, such as Moldova, score low on the Happiness Index. In Moldova, a common saying, we read in Eric Weiner's The Geography of Bliss, is "not my problem." No one wants to live there.
Economic injustice spreads from a lack of empathy. We read that "Rich People Care Less" and "Powerful and Cold-Hearted" in the NYT.
Three. What’s the problem with defining empathy?
There is no agreement or definitive definition. We know it’s about reading other people’s emotion and feeling their emotion and this shared feeling gives us connection with others. This connection in turn results in greater compassion.
We also read that when we have empathy we can read other people’s distress signals and we feel compelled to react compassionately toward those signals.
Four. What is the relationship between narcissism and empathy?
As narcissism increases (through privilege, entitlement, false self-esteem, wealth, or other causes), empathy decreases.
Narcissism is defined as “increased self-absorption” in the essay.
Someone once defined narcissism this way: On one hand the narcissist has this unlimited craving for the adulation of others; on the other hand, this same narcissist has utter contempt for others. The contradiction of the narcissist speaks to his insanity.
Five. According to college surveys, what is the state of empathy?
Analyzing 72 surveys, researchers found that empathy was flat from 1979-2000. Then around 2000, “there’s this sudden, sharp drop.”
A specific type of empathy, called empathic concern (how much one cares about others), dropped 48 percent between 1979 and 2009.
Six. What cultural changes have accompanied this dramatic drop in empathy?
The rise of video games, 24-hour cable television, widespread divorce, laptops and cellphones have created an insular world where people withdraw more and more into themselves and what David Brooks calls “The Big Me.”
With news overload coming at us on social media, cellphones, and 24-hour cable TV, we read that we suffer a sort of tragic news overload in which one world catastrophe bleeds into the next until we become numb and our empathy traits die off in a sort of gangrene or frostbite.
(I've adapted these ideas from Chapter 3 of How to Write Anything by John J. Ruszkiewicz.)
Know what kind of argument you are writing:
Argument to advance a thesis:
You argue for a thesis as you champion an idea or a cause.
For example, you might argue for eating steamed vegetables three times a day and provide the many benefits of employing such a practice.
Another example would be a writer who argues that the Paleo diet is the most effective way to maintain lean muscle mass.
Another example would be for a writer to argue for water rationing and triple water bills for homeowners who go over their water threshold.
Refutation argument:
You refute an already existing argument or practice, showing point by point why the argument is weak, precarious, or even fallacious (fallacy-laden).
For example, you might refute Civil War reenactments on the grounds that they are white male fantasies based on the infantile hunger for nostalgia, the toxic Kool-Aid of White Supremacy, and the denial of moral accountability for the evils of slavery.
In your refutation, you paint Civil War reenactments as a grotesque pageantry akin to a racist Disneyworld where are all the actors are white and black history has been erased because "it would be too disturbing" to the bogus, idealized world inhabited by the emotionally-arrested aspirants of "the good old Confederate days" and their other shameless displays of morally-bankrupt tomfoolery.
Once you decide on your argument or claim, you must consider finding compelling reasons to support your claim.
Support Your Claim
Without support consisting of data, statistics, reasoning, logic, and refutations to counterarguments, your opinion exists in an abyss or a vacuum. You must develop a considered or educated opinion, which is the result of fearlessly studying the pros and cons of your subject in which you try to minimize your prejudices, biases, and other emotional baggage that might blind you from the truth.
Understand Opposing Claims and Points of View
You don't have an educated or considered opinion until you have been tested by your opponents' strongest arguments. If you can refute those arguments, then you can continue with your claim.
You will also gain credibility with your readers for showing your understanding of your opponents' views.
You will gain even more credibility when you can refute your opponents with assured insouciance rather than infantile hostility. Also choose polite insouciance over hostility as the former is a sign of intellectual superiority; the latter is a sign of juvenile fear and inexperience.
Give Appropriate Sartorial (Clothing Style) Splendor (Writing Style) to Your Arguments
Your argument is the "body" of the essay. Your writing style is the fashion or sartorial choice you make in order to "dress up" your argument and give it power, moxie, and elan (passion).
Here is the same claim dressed up differently in the following two thesis statements:
Plain
Civil War reenactments are racist gibberish that need to go once and for all.
More Dressed Up
Our moral offense to civil war reenactments rests on our understanding that the participants are engaging in nostalgia for the days when the toxic religion of white supremacy ruled the day, that the participants gleefully and childishly erase black history to the detriment of truth, and that on a larger scale, they engage in the mythical revisionism of the Confederacy narratives, hiding its barbaric practices by esteeming racist thugs as if they were innocent and venerable Disney heroes. Their sham is so morally egregious and spiritually bankrupt that to examine its folly in all its shameless variations compels us to abolish the sordid practice without equivocation.
Plain
We need to stop blaming the poor for their poverty.
More Dressed Up
The idea that the rich are wealthy because of their superior moral character and that the poor live in poverty because of their inferior moral character is a glaring absurdity rooted in willful ignorance, the blind worship of money, and an irrational fear of poverty as if it were some kind of contagious disease.
Qualify Your Thesis to Make It More Persuasive and Reasonable
Qualifiers such as the following will make your thesis more bullet-proof from your opponents:
some
most
a few
often
under certain conditions
when necessary
occasionally
Example:
Under most conditions, narcotics should be legalized in order to decrease crime, increase rehabilitation, and decrease unnecessary incarceration.
Examine Your Core Assumptions
Assumptions are the principles and values upon which we base our beliefs and actions.
Claim
Under most conditions, narcotics should be legalized in order to decrease crime, increase rehabilitation, and decrease unnecessary incarceration.
Assumption
Treating drug use as a medical problem that requires rehabilitation is morally superior to relying on incarceration. Some may disagree with this assumption, so the writer will have to defend her assumption at some point in her essay.
Here's a link (with grammar errors) for writing counterarguments and refutations in your essay.
Notice the link, which is from a community college, is riddled with grammar errors. We all make mistakes from time to time, especially on the Internet, but a pattern of errors is disturbing indeed.
McMahon Grammar Lesson: Comma Rules (based in part by Diana Hacker’s Rules for Writers)
Commas are designed to help writers avoid confusing sentences and to clarify the logic of their sentences.
If you cook Jeff will clean the dishes. (Will you cook Jeff?)
While we were eating a rattlesnake approached us. (Were we eating a rattlesnake?)
Comma Rule 1: Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS) joining two independent clauses.
Rattlesnakes are high in protein, but I’d rather eat a peanut butter sandwich.
Rattlesnakes are dangerous, and the desert species are even more so.
We are a proud people, for our ancestors passed down these famous delicacies over a period of five thousand years.
The exception to rule 1 is when the two independent clauses are short:
The plane took off and we were on our way.
Comma Rule 2: Use a comma after an introductory clause or phrase.
When Jeff Henderson was in prison, he developed an appetite for reading.
In the nearby room, the TV is blaring full blast.
Tanning in the hot Hermosa Beach sun for over two hours, I realized I had better call it a day.
The exception is when the short adverb clause or phrase is short and doesn’t create the possibility of a misreading:
In no time we were at 2,800 feet.
Comma Rule 3: Use a comma between all items in a series.
Jeff Henderson found redemption through hard work, self-reinvention, and social altruism.
Finding his passion, mastering his craft, and giving back to the community were all part of Jeff Henderson’s self-reinvention.
Comma Rule 4: Use a comma between coordinate adjectives not joined with “and.” Do not use a comma between cumulative adjectives.
The adjectives below are called coordinate because they modify the noun separately:
Jeff Henderson is a passionate, articulate, wise speaker.
The adjectives above are coordinate because they can be joined with “and.” Jeff Henderson is passionate and articulate and wise.
Adjectives that do not modify the noun separately are cumulative.
Three large gray shapes moved slowly toward us.
Chocolate fudge peanut butter swirl coconut cake is divine.
Comma Rule 5: Use commas to set off nonrestrictive (nonessential) elements.
Restrictive or essential information doesn’t have a comma:
For school the students need notebooks that are college-ruled.
Jeff’s cat that just had kittens became very aggressive.
Nonrestrictive:
For school the students need college-ruled notebooks, which are on sale at the bookstore.
Jeff Henderson’s mansion, which is located in Las Vegas, has a state-of-the-art kitchen.
My youngest sister, who plays left wing on the soccer team, now lives at The Sands, a beach house near Los Angeles.
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