Facebook

STS 101

Is Facebook hurting the way we view society?

Facebook has become a huge phenomenon. It seems that every single person in America, from parents to students to teachers all have them. While it has become a great tool to keep in touch with friends and family all over the globe, we must take a step back and look at the problems created by relying so heavily on technology as it affects our society.

Walk through Clemson University’s campus 25 years ago and it was quite a different place. No one was laying out in the amphitheater playing games on their iphones or updating their relationship status on facebook. They didn’t have that technology available to do that. So they had to go out and physically meet people. That’s the same all over the country and world. Why do I bring this up? Because people today have become so ingrained in technology that they focus more on their online identity then on their actual identity. People will spend hours uploading photos of parties and formals so people can look at them, when in reality they could just have a photo album and show their close friends what they did last weekend.

It doesn’t look like it will get any better in the future. The overreliance on technology will get worse as people become more focused on how many friends they have on facebook and not on how many actual people they hang out with in a given week. I believe that it is important for people use that sort of technology sparingly because it does not compare to actual human interaction.