What Is The Purpose Of The Social Networks By Neal Gabler

Landon Haist

Professor Luthi

Composition 2

09 February 2023

Neal Gabler The Social Networks

In 2010 Neal Gabler wrote an essay called “The Social Networks” and in his essay Gabler talks about the relationship between television and people’s social circles today. Neal Gabler is a well-known analyst and historian of cinema and pop culture who is the author of many books surrounding pop culture. In his essay, Gabler makes the point that television shows have created an unrealistic standard for friendships and the way television depicts friendships is the perfect friendships everyone wishes they had.. He explains that many television shows have set friend groups or social circles that do everything together and how today friendships have become

He does make some convincing points like how he quotes Harvard professor Robert Putnam talking about how humans have become more disconnected from one another and their society. Gabler uses logos to appeal to readers, he uses facts and logic to get his point across and it was effective. Gabler mentions a study that found that Americans had one-third fewer non-family relationships than twenty years prior. This study is credible and was done by the same Harvard professor that he quoted earlier in the paragraph. One thing I believe Gabler failed to mention was the opposition, he did not bring up how other people may view friendships and he seemed set and stone that the majority of people viewed everything the way he viewed it. It feels like he believes that everyone just wants a high following on social media and that more people value followers than friendships, however this is not true and is a fallacy and just a generalization. I know of many people, such as myself, who do not care much about the following they have but rather values true

He makes some very valid points but at the same time I believe that he makes too many generalizations. For example, I agree that television does have an effect on people’s friendships, just not the same reason Gabler believes. I know it is not a big part of many of Gabler’s arguments, but I believe that social media has a bigger impact on our lives than television and I think he should have gone more into depth about how social media impacts friendships too. Social media has made it very easy to make friends on the internet, but Gabler argues that these are not true friendships because there is not any actual contact with them, and this is where I disagree with him. Just because there is not any physical contact or face to face communication does not mean that they are not true friendships, you can still hold the same conversations over the phone, you can still support one another miles away, almost anything you can do in a “real friendship” you can also do online or on the phone. I also believe that because of social media it is also easier to be closer to friends. On social media you can show your friends what you are doing all the time which makes it easier to connect with others. This is why I believe Gabler should have brought up social media more in his argument about how friendships are affected, but because he did not, I will talk more about arguments he does