Always on and Perfect Stories

After reading the articles, I felt pretty strongly about some of the ideas brought up in “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely” and “The Always-on Lifestyle”. I do not think that Facebook makes us more lonely in the sense that it takes away from our real life relationships. At least in most cases, people scan facebook in their downtime and it is not anymore prohibitive of seeing our friends and family than Netflix, work, or studying. However, I do think Facebook makes us lonely in the sense that we only upload the best versions of ourselves. When looking at someone’s Facebook you don’t see the night they spent alone studying, the family drama they have going on, or what have you, you only see the fun and perfect moments that were worth capturing and sharing with the world. When comparing our lives in all their happy and unhappy moments, to the facebook uploads of perfect moments filled with friends and fun, we can begin to feel lonely.

It was also interesting to realize just how plugged in we really are as a society after reading “The ALways-on Lifestyle”. I thought the beginning of the article when she posed the question to herself of how much time she actually spends online was fascinating. I always thought I didn’t spend too much time surfing the web, but I didn’t realize how I can be contacted at any second, and I am even notified when someone does something as trivial as post on my facebook wall. The fact that we can always be reached definitely is causation for many sociological changes within our society.