Deresiewicz Social Media

We are constantly surrounding ourselves with social media, from tweeting, to liking pictures on Instagram, to posting on Facebook. Our generation is constantly updating their friends as to their every move and every achievement. While social media, does provide us with a way to keep in contact with friends, it also makes us throw away in person contact. For example, I now can group text all my friends about getting a new job, instead of actually seeing all my friends and telling them in person. Deresiewicz 's argues that solitude is no longer existent in our current generation, because people are constantly on social media or using gadgets, such as phone. His examples have to do with religion, society and history. Even though Deresiewicz

Deresiewicz 's begins his argument with mentioning how a young girl, will run through 3,000 texts in a month and be not bothered, by how much she spends on social media. He also mentions how one of his student 's fears solitude, so much that she would rather sit with a friend and write a paper then do it on her own. Our current generation is raised on the idea that if we aren 't surrounded by our friends then we aren 't anybody. We fear loneliness, because it means isolation from the rest of the world. "You cannot hear God when people are chattering at you, and the divine word, their pretensions notwithstanding, demurs at descending on the monarch and the priest." I think this may be Deresiewicz 's strongest point in his essay. We often pray in groups, but we always pray to god on our own. If we constantly are interrupted by others, then as Deresiewicz says we can never talk to god. I think it is also interesting how we do not fear that sort of isolation, but we feel loneliness, when it comes to

While I agree with Deresiewicz 's idea that we as a humanity fear and truly don 't understand solitude, I don 't agree with how he presents his argument. He doesn 't have any convincing facts or details as to how social media and technology are truly ruining us. Also I think that when we are constantly on social media, we are truly more alone then ever. We often sit in front of a computer or phone and just wait for someone to reply or post or tweet. Sometimes we are simply reading the news, but most of the time we are by ourselves. Only when all electronics are taken away, do we become apparent of the loneliness. Solitude and loneliness are the same thing, except that we define them differently. Solitude we view as voluntarily deciding to spend time to one self, while loneliness is not decided, it just happens. Deresiewicz doesn 't convince the reader, because he doesn 't present an argument, he simply states thing. Their are benefits to social media and technology, which are helping our nation evolve. How else would we know that the middle east is at war? How else would we be able to see what happened on 911, without photos or videos. The reason that so many people are afraid of solitude, is because we don 't fully understand how too separate the two. I 'm one of those people, who can go either or, but I 'd rather not be lonely. I couldn 't imagine living alone, because I was raised in solitude. I was raised in solitude and I never enjoyed it. When you get a taste