Social Media Breaking Down Our Culture Analysis

In this day and age of technology, social networking has become more popular than ever. People have the world at their fingertips with their blackberries, iphones, laptops, etc. Facebook, twitter, myspace, and all the other main social networking sites have become the main source of communication on the internet. Also, texting has become very popular these days as well. But is social networking breaking down our culture and our social skills? Or is it a healthy way to stay in contact with people through the internet? By surfing the web, I came across an web-journal that featured an editorial on social networking. Written by Maria Quinlan, Social networking makes twits of us all, downplays the need for social networking and how it is deteriorating our society from within. Throughout this article, Quinlan, through Ethos Logos and Pathos, uses examples from experiences that she has witnessed about people being in touch more with the virtual world than the world that is actually surrounding them. Quinlan builds credibility after each experience that she goes through, mostly because they are first hand, and appeals to many emotions of mine because I have witnessed similar experiences. For example, as she walked down the hall of Webster University, she noted that out of five people she had passed, four of them were glued to their phones, not even
She says that the internet has drastically changed over the years, which it has, into more than just interacting with a “shadowy user name where we pretend to be something we're not.” It is now evolved into something where sites such as Twitter and Facebook offer an opportunity to extend your real identity and relationships online. It is the feeling that one gets when reconnecting with an old friend, something that appeals to Pathos because I have reconnected with old family and friends through