Generally speaking, teenagers are becoming less present to the outside world. They are blind to this problem, however, and they do not see that avoiding real social situations is extremely detrimental to their overall coping and communication skills. Jacob Silverman, author of the novel, “Terms of Service”, questions the true purpose of technology by arguing, “Social media is a means to the cyber-libertarian end. That it's only the latest hyped product to come down the pipe - that the inventors of the telegraph and the telephone and the Internet itself shared similar naive fantasies - doesn't seem to matter. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest have the capacity - if we are to believe the companies marketing to us - to remake our world …show more content…
Silverman continues, “Photos become less about memorializing a moment than communicating the reality of that moment to others. They are also a way to handle the newfound anxiety over living in the present moment, knowing that our friends and colleagues may be doing something more interesting at just that very moment, and that we will see those experiences documented later on social media” (Silverman 56). In other words, Silverman makes the point that social media has taken away the nostalgia from taking and looking at photos. Today, pictures are shared and posted just for the satisfaction of likes. On top of this, teenagers post provocative and inappropriate pictures just to get attention and to show people that they are daring individuals. Linked to this point, Silverman mentions that comments and “likes” are now replacing verbal conversations. Unfortunately, this can cause social anxiety in teenagers who are used to chatting over a screen than face to face with someone. He also debates that social media “trends” are often meaningless and short-lived, leaving bad examples for teenagers. An example of this, that Silverman does not mention, would be the Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge, where people would suck on glass cups to make their lips look