Allie Gregory's Speech

          Don’t you just love now? A digital age, a digital world… That’s what we’re calling it right? This is the time of technology and making life easier. This is the time of innovation, of taking anything and everything and improving it with the new means at our discretion. We don’t want to carry around credit cards so hey look we made apple pay. We don’t want to carry a camera or a flashlight or a map, so we added those to our phone as well. We don’t want to wait 3 days for a letter to arrive in the mail, so we use email.  Anything and everything we can upload to the Internet is a good thing these days, right? You know, at this point we really ought to just upload our entire lives to the Internet! What a brilliant idea, don’t you think? Then we can be digital people for a digital world, a fully integrated part of the system.
          But wait. Is that really what we want? We can be digital people for a digital world, but should we be? The question posed may seem ridiculous, but it’s honestly far more relevant than you’d think. In our modern society, it has become the norm to rely so heavily on social media that we have done practically just that. We post pictures, post our lives online for the world to see. Some more than others pour their hearts into the Internet, and then they are left reliant on the reactions and judgments of other people staring at screens. Most everyone is caught up in the “put it online” phase, and it’s damaging society. It’s hurting people, and it’s hurting relationships.
          According to The Negative Effect of Social Media on Society and Individuals, an online article by Brian Jung, some negative effects of social media include cyber-bullying, lack of privacy, decreased productivity, and a false sense of connection. Cyber-bullying is a major problem among youth.  A 2010 CBS News report states that 42% of youth say they have been victims of cyber-bullying. The psychological damage caused by cyber-bullying can have lasting effects. It is a very serious matter, sometimes leading to suicide. What Jung states under the heading of privacy, I paraphrase as don’t put anything on the internet that you don’t want your grandmother, pastor, boss, or children to see later. Once it’s out there, it’s out there.
          At least 2 studies mentioned by Jung found that social media strongly decreases productivity in the work place. Morse discovered that British companies lost 2.2 billion a year to social media, while Nucleus Research found that Facebook shaves 1.5% off office productivity. According to a TEDtalk I watched, Allison Graham stated that we check our phone on average 150 times a day. Each time we are distracted by our phones, it takes several minutes for our brains to get back to where we were with our work.
          Finally, according to Steven Strogatz from Cornell University, social media leads to a false sense of connection.  We find it more difficult “to distinguish between the meaningful relationships we foster in the real world, and the numerous casual relationships formed through social media.” Strogatz fears that by focusing so much of our effort, time and energy on these less meaningful relationships, our most important connections will weaken. Graham also spoke to this, stating that people on average had 10 close friends in 2001. By 2014, that number had decreased to 2. Effects of social media? My guess is yes.
          One point that Graham made that I found very interesting was that by abbreviating everything to LOL, OMG and IDK, we are limiting our vocabulary. By doing this, we risk losing the nuances and subtleties that make up our personalities. I very much believe this to be true. I pride myself on having a varied vocabulary, more so than so most people of my generation. I text my friends just as much as any teenager, but I refuse to abbreviate. I refuse to use the same language that everyone else uses. My language makes me who I am.
          I watched a TED Talk by a guy named Paul Miller, talking about the year that he “quit the internet.” He claimed to be a product of this digital age, caught up in staying interconnected via social media. And he was tired of it. So he stopped. For a year, he didn’t text, he didn’t email, and he didn’t access his multitude of social media accounts. And he described the feeling he got from doing so as “an amazing sense of freedom.” That being said, I get that the concept probably seems ridiculous. None of you feel any desire to go home and quit the Internet, I’m sure, not for any supposed sense of freedom. And yet, Paul Miller had some particularly striking insights nonetheless. He brings up the popular question, “Does social media bring us together or are we all just hiding behind our computers pretending we have friends?” And while he didn’t come to a very strict conclusion, he did list his observations. He said that since he quit the Internet, he could feel the difference in how he interacted with others. He said things became instantly more personal once he didn’t have the ever-present distraction that is the online social world. How many times have you been online, browsing Instagram or Twitter, with other people around? If you don’t think you have, then ask yourself how often you’ve let your mind wander to these things? We’re addicted to the social media. Even when we aren’t using it, we want to be. We want to see if anyone has liked our photo, or if any new people have requested to follow us, and it distracts us from real life. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that Paul Miller felt better about his personal relationships. Not having that distraction allowed him to fully engage, something we struggle with in this day and age.
          And now you have to recognize that I’m not asking anyone to stop using social media. I understand that it’s the norm. It’s what people do, and it would be so very hard for the majority of us to cut that out of our lives. Beyond that, much of technology is practically a necessity these days. Paul Miller even admitted that during the course of his Internet-abstinence he drifted apart from people in general. It became harder to keep up with them and as such in some cases he just didn’t. So, no, I realize that society is never going to take that step backwards.
          That being said, however, I feel like we can take steps in a better direction. The reason this problem is bound to continue is because people refuse to see it as a problem. Either they recognize that it’s their way of life and they’ve accepted it completely, or they are deluded to think it’s not as impactful as it is. As you can see it is very impactful. So all I encourage you to do is to think about it. Be aware. Don’t let yourself get caught up in this stuff, don’t let it rule your life.



Works Cited

Gowen, Kris. “Teens on Social Media’s Impact on Relationships: Survey.” Connect Safely. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.

Graham, Allison. “How Social Media Makes Us Unsocial – Allison Graham – TEDxSMU.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 12 Nov. 2010. Web. 12 Dec. 2015.

Jung, Brian. “The Negative Effect of Social Media on Society and Individuals.” Chron. Demand Media. Web. 15 Jan. 2011.

Miller, Paul. “A year offline, what I have learned – Paul Miller – TEDxEutropolis.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 13 Sep. 2013. Web. 12 Dec. 2015.

Rosen, Larry. “Social Networking’s Good and Bad Impacts on Kids.” American Psychological Association. (2011). Print.

Scott, Tom. “Social Media Dystopia – Tom Scott – TEDxSheffield 2010.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 12 Nov. 2010. Web. 12 Dec. 2015.