Is Facebook Making Us Lonely

Unfortunately, in this day of age, we as a society have become far too dependent on technology and social media. Just taking a moment to look around yourself you can’t help but see so many people either swiping away on their phones or mindlessly lending over towards their computers. However, you can’t help but ask what are they doing? More than likely everyone was on one of the many social media platforms. In the article “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” the author argues that Facebook, one of the most popular forms of social media ever, is the reason why much of society is the way it is. For example, there used to be a point in time, where friends and families remembered each other’s birthdays and would mail you a birthday card, offer to take
you out for dinner and or simply give you a phone call. Instead, we find ourselves running to our to Facebook profiles to see who and how many people where reminded by Facebook that it was your birthday and congratulated you for it. We no longer even care, who exactly sends us these greeting but how many we receive, and yet when we do, we always claim that person to be our “friend” or “real friend”. “That one little phrase, Your real friends—so quaint, so charmingly mothering—perfectly encapsulates the anxieties that social media have produced: the fears that Facebook is interfering with our real friendships, distancing us from each other, making us lonelier; and that social networking might be spreading the very isolation it seemed designed to conquer (Marche).” Which personally, is where the issue of “loneliness” and “being alone” really start. Today we are very greedy. All we simply want is more of everything; more friends, more views, more likes, more shares, and more popularity. We find ourselves posting photos and posting comments that we know or think will get us the most feed back and find satisfaction in the high number of likes, shares and comments. It’s no surprise that more and more people are finding themselves living alone because we assume that all we really need is a computer for our “everyday basic” human interactions. Nothing is far more easier than signing onto your account and seeing a flock of people trying to get your attention or attempting to interact with you by using multiple views and photos. Yes, it makes one feel good, but how long does that exactly fast? It makes the user feel that this is all the need in their lives. That the only thing really important is the fact that there is someone somewhere talking to them about whatever new and relevant topic is streaming on everyone’s newsfeed. There is no need after that point to really physically interact with the public when the people you have already hand selected with the same views and same group of friends are interacting with you, rather than you trying to do the difficult task of trying to figure out the new people you meet out on the street.
“According to Cornell University's Steven Strogatz, social media sites can make it more difficult for us to distinguish between the meaningful relationships we foster in the real world, and the numerous casual relationships formed through social media. By focusing so much of our time and psychic energy on these less meaningful relationships, our most important connections, he fears, will weaken (Jung) .” Unfortunately, Jung provides to us that this takes away from the true human experience. There is so much that we need that you cannot get through social media such as a warming hug when something tragic happens or someone to help you with a shelf that you’ve been trying to install in your bathroom for instance that you cannot do via Facebook. We miss out on these team building and comforting opportunities. In Eric Klinenberg’s article “Facebook Isn't Making Us Lonely” he argues that just because someone can be living by themselves and enjoys spending their time interacting with the online community doesn’t mean that person is “alone” or “lonely”. He argues that someone can simply void that feeling or need for human interaction with simply, besides social media, a pet or a strong faith in a higher being such as god. Not just that but he claims that ”there’s zero evidence that we’re more detached or lonely than ever” when scientists are taking their time to prove that it in fact is (Klinenberg).” According to him, the focus on something else in the person’s life fills that emptiness that the other articles claim to say that Facebook causes. While we can understand where Klinenberg is coming from, we can also argue that this is essentially like having a
cyber relationship with yourself because no one physically talking back to you. In Medical News Today, they also agree that Facebook has a very negative effect on it’s users. “ In a more recent study, conducted by Dr. Rauch and colleagues, the team found that social interaction on social media sites, specifically Facebook, may have a negative impact on face-to-face encounters for individuals who already have high levels of anxiety (Whiteman).” Which ultimately can lead to loneliness and being alone because the person doesn't know how to deal with the situation and in return decides that they are better off by themselves which makes it all worse. At the end of the day, as they all say, everything should be in moderation. However, with social media platform so large and reoccurring in society, it really is difficult to moderate your Facebook intake. All you can simply do, is try your very hardest to socialize yourself in the outside with real challenges and people who can help improve yourself. Both authors, have very different yet well presented arguments, but I feel as if Marche’s argument about Facebook making us lonely, is absolutely correct.