Critical Rationale Essay
soncvi
project_1.docx
This is my beginning essay
Before the Internet became common, people had a very hard time communicating over long distances with friends or family, except by phone or letter. However, people had to write a lot of letters to different people or call many different people and say the same stuff. It is wastes so much time to send a letter or call. With the advancement of the Internet, we can easily communicate with the entire world and receive news from friends through a personal computer.
Social media has developed gradually. There are certain programs people may be able to use to communicate, such as Yahoo, Hotmail, Skype, Twitter or Facebook. Although there are many different social networking sites out there, Facebook has gained a large number of users. Moreover, Facebook has long relied on its own users to help translate the site into more than 65 different languages. This function helps a lot in different countries that don’t use English that often and that’s why Facebook has rapid growth in network.
As of today, 250 million people are using Facebook to give updates on what's happening around them every day, share the news with their friends, and find something interesting on it. I am one of the users on Facebook, but for me Facebook has a little different function than for most people. In general, lifestyle and culture Taiwan are different than America; I never expect my family to understand what I describe about my life in America. The only way to show them is let them to see it and feel like they participate in part of my life. My mother never has been to the school where I study at University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Therefore, sometimes I will post some picture to let her know what am I doing and where I went for travel. When I first went to America I was 18 years old, I was a little girl who never did something different. As time passed, I changed little bit compared to before. Taiwanese culture is more traditional and conservative for their children; therefore something that seems small in America can become a culture shock for my family. For example, nightclub in America is to let people to relax, having fun, and hung out with friend. However, in Taiwan in general nightclub is more danger and unacceptable for most of people. Especially in my parent’s generation it is not acceptable, my mother defiantly will have problem with me. Nowadays may change little bit but my mother still won’t allow me to go nightclub in Taiwan.
As of today, I am able to tell my family my opinion, give suggestions, analyze of the pros and cons of what they tell me to do, go to a bar, dress up a little sexy or have a boyfriend. Just try to imagine if your parents see you every two years instead of every day. Obviously it is very hard for parents too see children growing up that much and fast without them.
I started posting some picture I didn’t post before because I want to change this strained relationship between my family and I. Usually, we are more shy and serious about something personal. I remember how I tell my mother about my boyfriend through Facebook. When I just started dating my boyfriend, I didn't know how to tell my mother this. First, I don’t know if she can accept a foreigner. Second, I don’t know what will she think about this. So the only way is to send her a picture message on Facebook. After a while, she did message and ask me about the boy in my Facebook timeline. She and I had a very small chat conversation but she seemed to accept this boyfriend even though she still had a lot of question to ask. At least we don’t have any issue or argument.
I post pictures on Facebook in order to let my mother have time to process her first emotions and so I can also avoid this dramatic situation with her. When you post something on your Facebook timeline, sometime you want to send to a particular person. They may not see it at that first moment, so it essentially gives them time to process their first emotion. This can be a good emotion or bad, but at least you get the benefit anyway. Facebook is a bridge to communicate between my mother and I. Through this social media we reduce conflicts and avoid unnecessary disagreement.
Facebook is a tool that should be used with care. Though it is an easy way to stay in touch with friends and family that live far away, and to stay updated information to each other, which are what the message you want to send to particular person. It can cause problem. The picture I posted on my Facebook timeline was targeted to my mother, but in addition to her, basically whoever is my friend will be able to see it. Perhaps some of my friends are jealous of me. Therefore, Facebook can also product negative influences on one’s personality. For example, Facebook sometimes makes certain users feel jealous of the lives of other people; it can also provoke dissatisfaction on their own lives, especially compared to people who are more popular or have better lives. Always be careful when using Facebook to avoid the unnecessary issues or drama.
Facebook gives me a chance to resolve and change the relationship between my family and I; we are becoming closer about something personal. Also, we don’t have that much argument between us, and we have more courage to show how much we love each other by writing through Facebook. In addition to helping me adjust to American life, Facebook has also helped me become closer to the people I care about that are still in Taiwan.
This is my second essay
The Internet has produced a great influence on today’s society. Many social changes have happened as an effect of being able to easily to get information by technological improvement. For example, one cannot sit for even an hour to read a book without being distracted by a phone or Facebook, the social website. How we think and communicate has changed significantly because of the Internet, which has grown much more because of social media. Social media affects us in how we communicate and how we behave. This paper’s purpose is to explore several parts of how we communicate using these technologies and their influence on our communication and behaviors.
It is obvious now that the Internet has greatly affected our society. One of the social media websites that in particular has become famous is Facebook. In this new generation, people may not realize how their behavior and communication has been changed through social media, such as Facebook. In order to find out how social media has changed us, we must ask ourselves these questions and compare them to how generations before social media would answer these questions. “How has it changed the way we behave?” and “Has it affected the way we speak or write?”
Humans have always been social creatures and have always looked for ways to communicate with one another. So Facebook did not bring with it something new, it just made socializing more convenient (Scott & Scott, 2011). We can now socialize, communicate and network without leaving our living rooms; even people from two different countries can have a conversation with one another. In the past, sometimes one would have to travel a long distance just to communicate with another person. For example today in the business world, international meetings can take place over video chat instead of physically meeting. Social media has become a necessary part of our everyday lives. Facebook has definitely influenced the way we communicate in our social lives.
Facebook has led us to communicate with many people over long distances and in a way that was only possible to communicate with friends or family members in the past. Therefore, this is the best way to keep friendships over long distances. However, this also means that an individual has to keep a larger number of relationships at the same time on Facebook. In the US for example, the average number of friends a person has through a social media site is about 300 (Scott & Scott, 2011). This means that even if a small percentage of these friends are close friends, you will still have many friendships to maintain. As a result, the speed of communication needs to be increased to maintain all our relationships, which Facebook allows us to do with high efficiency.
Facebook brings our lives more convenience, and more socialization in the community where we belong. Even though Facebook has a lot of the advantages, we may not have true friendships with people or we may lose the writing skills we have while we use too much informal language on Facebook. As mentioned above, with 300 friends most people have a hard time relating to so many people at the same time. Through the technological improvements, the new generation does not use formal language anymore; during the limited space allowed in comment boxes on Facebook, they have to use abbreviations. What is the cost of this for our new generation? They may not understand or know how to write formal English very well.
Due to social media, the use of abbreviations has become common. Abbreviations made from the first letters of some words are combined to make a short word. Some example are OMG (Oh my God) and LOL (laugh out loud), as well as other words (Manafy & Gautschi, 2011). Emoticons are also used in communicating instead of some words, to make the sentence have a strong emotional impact. Emoticons are a combination of characters that are facial expressions, like a smile used to express the feelings of the writer.
When the new generation uses those abbreviations, would this not influence people’s English skills? Facebook and other social media websites have also influenced the way we speak and write English. In the social media environment, some words have been used differently from how they have been used in the past. This gives a totally different meaning to some words. People engaged in social media are therefore giving new meanings to words and actually creating new words. For example the word “friend” is a word used to describe someone you have a close relationship with. This word however has been given totally new meaning through Facebook (Manafy & Gautschi, 2011). It is used to describe the process by which you add a person to your own group of Facebook contacts.
Scott & Scott, (2011) said that as social media develops, it also brings about significant changes to how the society receives information and communicates. For example, social media allows us to find out almost everything about the person before meeting them face-to-face. A student can also know a roommate even before they arrive on the campus. Social media has also made it easy for anyone to vent out his or her views. Anyone can post anything they want or comment on any Facebook posts out there.
This trend is not only limited to personal life, but also it is apparent in companies and brands. For example, a consumer has the ability to go online and find out all about a particular product before they purchase it. In addition, it is also possible to collect sources from many friends in order to find out the different opinions. This means that these communications between certain friends are all about brands. Social media has greatly determined purchasing decisions of customers on brand through Facebook. A study has shown that social media recommendations made over 70% of consumers more likely to make purchases (Manafy & Gautschi, 2011). A lot of people will build a page or group to discuss what they are purchasing or which brand they prefer. This also gives some idea to new consumers purchasing products from specific brands that they are unfamiliar with.
A communication tool on Facebook that has proven to be very important for consumers and brands is ‘like’. For example, about half of social media users have purchased items in stores or online after ‘liking’ it on Facebook. Today more consumers are looking to social media websites, especially Facebook, for information, places to communicate and tools for making decisions. It is interesting to note that social media posts from companies affect the purchasing decisions of about 78% of consumers (Manafy & Gautschi, 2011). This means that brands have a strong social media presence. These websites allow communication between brands and consumers where opinions are formed, which makes them very valuable tools for brands when they are looking to improve.
On the other hand, Maushart (2011) thinks that Facebook has led to the breaking down of relationships and has made people more stupid. She says, “The more data we have the more stupid we will become”. She believes that when people are able to connect more with each other, they actually become more disconnected. She further argues that the more we use online chatting, the more our communication and relationships suffer. She points out that online chatting has been scientifically linked to loneliness, addiction, depression and weariness. Although Facebook was meant to promote communication, it has brought with it difficulties. Social media has therefore negatively impacted the way we communicate as a society as well as benefitted (Maushart, 2011).
Social media is taking control our lives; this is making us more isolated and more stressed out. Social media can make us feel a little lonely, we get a constant stream of other people’s business and it's too easy to keep comparing ourselves to them. People care about who they are on the internet too much and some people get stressed out from the comparison. Also there’s the issue of keeping up with yourself, just like other people try to position themselves in a good light, trying to show only your best angle, and you best day at work and home. And there is the fact you may miss what actually happens around you, while focusing on social media. Such as, when people see somebody post vacation picture on Facebook, over half of the people who see it will get stressed out or question themselves about why some can travel the world but they have to stay here and work. However, they may lose the opportunity to make their day happier, and just focus on their own self-pity. Using social media makes you more likely to experience stress through jealousy of the lives of family and friends.
Moreover, the use of technology and Facebook has created new ways of problems arising. According to Maushart, 2011, difficulties cause by lack of privacy, stalking, public scandals, hacking and bullying are all very depressing issues, which were not a concern before the use of these devices. In addition to this, she further points out that Facebook distract us from what actually matters. Facebook can therefore be a huge distraction to us and especially children (Maushart, 2011).
It is clear that Facebook actually changed the way we communicate and think. Facebook has made online communities, messaging and chatting possible by bringing it to normal audiences making social networking very popular. It is true that Facebook has provided a new way of communicating. Today information pops out as soon as you click a button. We can choose the information we need. In fact, some people have chosen to live in the Internet world instead of the real world. Some games like WOW and LOL have been found to make young people prefer to have internet hangouts rather than hang out with real friends (Manafy & Gautschi, 2011).
The impact of these social media websites has changed our communication styles and has even impacted the language we speak by adding new words and modifying some words to fit their context. Companies have found Facebook a great tool for marketing their products and influencing the purchasing decisions of their potential customers. Facebook has also disconnected us from each other. Facebook has therefore influenced and will continue to influence the way we communicate and the society at large (Manafy & Gautschi, 2011).
Through technology, it is obvious that people have changed their behavior and communication. Although it has been a sudden change, some do not seem to notice or they just avoid facing the fact that they have changed so dramatically. Instead of face-to-face conversation, people now prefer to communicate through online chatting. Writing skills have changed from being formal to more casual, and people will use abbreviations and emoticons to explain their emotions. Also, people have the ability to know each other sooner then before. All information about another is posted on the Internet. Companies used social media to get information about which products are the most popular and also save on the costs for the company to do the actual market research. It is not about whether the effects are positive or negative, but that we realize and notice how dramatically our behavior and communication has changed from how it was before social media such as Facebook.
