Just Between You, Me, and My 622 BFFs - Essay Example

 Analytical essay (between you, me, and my 622) Internet has made social media a platform for the present day forms of communication. The social media tools have become like a necessity especially amongst the teens and the young adults who can barely go for a day without accessing the internet. Other forms of communication such as texting using cell phones have become means of socializing. Computers, iPod touch, and cell phones have become part and parcel of the present day scholars from the young to the elderly. Scholars in the institutions of higher learning may often be found consulting their computers for academic research. Their counterparts in the lower grade will use the computers for different purposes; mainly socializing and exchanging photos. Using social media tools has rapidly gained popularity in the recent years. This has, however, been accompanied by some negative effects especially on the teens. The parents have been unable control the teens. The social media tools such as the Facebook have become the first site to visit in the morning, and the last site to visit just before retiring to bed. There is the obvious effect of time wastage in addition to the dirty content that is often exchanged via the chatting over the sites. The trend of the social media has prompted Peggy Orenstein to write an article titled, just between you, me, and my 622 BFFs. In her article, Orenstein maintains a factual tone. She is a credible writer who written extensively about gender issues in school girls and is a great contributor to the New York Times. The main aim of her article is to raise awareness especially to parents on how the social media tools such as Facebook can distort the personal development of their children (Orenstein 1). To what extent can Facebook and other social media tools go in the distortion of a child’s personal development? It is like the virtual world is overtaking the real world. Real case scenarios The social media impacts a lot on the children’s development. The author of the essay illustrates this very vividly. At the beginning of her article, Orenstein addresses the case of a fourteen- year-old teen by the name Erin. The teen confesses that she began engaging herself in online activities since she was in third grade. This brings out the fact of how early the children get exposed to internet and the social media. The early exposure to the Internet makes them adopt new behaviors and lifestyles that may be unhealthy. For instance, Orenstein comments on how Erin and three of her friends shunned a healthy meal prepared by her mother, for a bucket of shamrock-shaped, green frosted sugar cookies bought at the grocery store. By so doing, the author tries to bring to the audience the effect of continued exposure to the internet on the children. What their mother thinks is important for them may not match their knowledge gained from the internet. It is unfortunate that they may prefer taking what the internet advertises. In this case, the sugar cookies sounded so popular to the since they were bought during the celebrations of Saint Patrick’s Day (Orenstein 1). This can be attributed to the fact that the four teens had been online from as early as age seven or eight. The author uses the three teens to illustrate how the children in the present era are so much attached to the mobile devices, ensuring they have internet everywhere and at all times. She notes that Erin and her three friends each owned an IPod touch, used computers daily, and each carried her cell phone as if it were a fifth limb. They also owned Facebook accounts that they regularly checked during the school days. From their interaction with various people on Facebook, the children tend to become radicals. They barely have the human touch and are not easily carried away by emotions. One of Erin’s friends, by the name Katie, confesses of meeting her birth mother on Facebook. The author is, however, astonished that how meeting someone’s real mother can be put so casually. To Katie, it sounds like meeting her real mother is not any big deal. “..the casual way she related the story confused me…finding your birth mother with a few clicks-on Facebook, of all things-would seem momentous...” The author refers to this as a disconnection that had devalued its worth (Orenstein 1). There is an unimaginable number of friends that one can have at any given time. The author shows the extent to which some teens have gone towards building their circle of friends. As she continues bringing out of the facts of the modern child, Orenstein is totally baffled at how someone can claim to have 622 friends. “But really? Six hundred twenty-two friends?” (Orenstein 1, para 3). If this is not enough, the teen, Felicia, claims that she has met each of her 622 offline friends. The author uses this case to illustrate how information can easily spread across such a social circle. If Katie posts anything on her Facebook wall, the 622 friends will see it, and each of them sends to their networks. Within a short duration of time, the information will be spread globally. This is especially so with negative content such as rumours or inappropriate pictures. Every recipient of the content will in turn judge Katie, the source, differently. “Six hundred twenty-two people are watching her, judging her, at least in theory, every hour of every day. How does that influence a child’s development?” The much pressure on her will in turn, have much influence on her development (Orenstein 2). The social media may also affect the identity of the young people. Social networking has changed young people’s real-life identities, allowing external forces to drive their lives and their relationships. “….social networking and virtual worlds have transformed how young people, male as well as female, conceptualize both their selves and their relationships” (Orenstein 2, para 4). They depend on what they hear from their network friends. The teens and young adults depend on the friends to either approve or reject their thoughts, photos, tastes, and activities. Their self is no longer developed from within but is instead marketed to others. The effect of this has been the difficulty in maintaining romantic relationships, dishonesty, and lack of empathy. Despite the negatives associated with Facebook, the author acknowledges not demonizing it. She appreciates the fact that Facebook is a powerful tool that can be used to connect to old friends and relatives globally, as well as promoting new ideas. She, however, advises that users should consider what they post online. This is because the photos or comments posted can be used to judge the person who posted. The judgment can have much effect on the persona cultivated offline. This is especially the case with girls. How does social networking affect the self-esteem of girls? Girls will tend to disconnect from their inner experience, and observe themselves in accordance with the thoughts of others. The audience of the present day girls exists only in their imagination, unlike in the earlier generations where the audience was real. “Unlike earlier generations, though, their imagined audience is all too real: online, every girl becomes a mini-Miley complete with her own adoring fan base that she is bound to maintain. “The modern day girls will pay so much attention to what their fans expect or like. They will try different things to win the adoration of their fans. The problem is that thy will post their nude and semi-nude photos on the social media to attract the most positive feedback. According to the author, the fastest way to make a girl feel belittled is through attacking her looks or sexual behavior. Such an attack can result in her committing suicide from the developed low self-esteem. Taking advantage of the weakness, their enemies are using it as a weapon to take the girls down. For instance, in the article, a girl by the name Felicia is being attacked by her peers. She is branded a slut simply because they are jealous of the boy she is dating. They have gone to an extent of creating a Facebook page called “Felicia’s a Whore”. Such attacks are just out of malic and can result in self-denial by the person under the attack (Orenstein 2). This has been the case with cyberbullying. What are other forms of child discrimination takes place online, and how do they affect the children’s development? Cyberbullying is one of these forms and has also taken root in the society. The young adults and the teens have been the major victims. “In the first high-profile case of cyberbullying, a Missouri girl, Megan Meier, hung herself in her bedroom after a romance with a boy she had met on Myspace-but had never spoken to or seen in person-went sour.” The practice has manifested itself in the form of sexual slurs passed via text message and on Facebook. The victims become overwhelmed with the bullying and unable to withstand, some of them commit suicide to end their problems. The girls tend to fall deep in love with strangers online, like one of them states “You’re the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over (Orenstein 6,para 10)” A fifteen-year-old Phoebe Prince hung herself after enduring months of sexual slurs. Just a few months later, another teen, Alexis Pilkington also took her life after a series of cyber taunts. The suicide cases have been the aftermath of the cyberbullying. Studies by the MTV and Associated Press have shown that the digital abuse has been directed more at the girls than boys (Orenstein 5).The girls have however been found to provoke the boys on the social media by means such as sending their semi-nude photos to the boys. It is like they find pleasure in provoking the boys. A friend of the author found a photo of a semi-nude girl on her son’s computer. She poses the rhetoric question, "how are we supposed to do that if a girl sends him something like this?" (Orenstein 6, para 11). There are also the other girls who send hot shots to their boyfriends without considering what they will do with the shots after break-ups (Orenstein 7). It is at this point that the author calls upon the parents to consider how the Internet use enhances their children’s real lives. This is in terms of their real friendships, as well as their contributions to the real world (Orenstein 8). Conclusion Facebook is a powerful and efficient tool for both communication and socializing. However, overusing it can be termed as an abuse and can result in adverse effects. The teens and the young adults are out there spending much of their time on Facebook. The content exchanged over Facebook is detrimental to the development of the young users. Others have embarked on malice to ruin their enemies. The anonymity application, available on Facebook has resulted in cases of explicit content hitting the inbox of the teens. The virtual world of Facebook has become of much importance than the real world of these teens. Relationships can no longer be real, simply because even most the friends on Facebook are not real. Suicides have resulted from the fake relationships practiced on Facebook. The parents have a tall order of developing constructive and real relationships with their children. Work cited Orenstein, Peggy. Cinderella ate my daughter. NY: HarperCollins, 2011. Read More