Dear Ms Samantha Taylor,

 

I find your opinions true and open minded, however I find the opinions of the people you have included in your article untrue and misleading. Mr Franzen believes that online socialising is “Creating a uniquely shallow and  trivial culture” I disagree here because some social networking sites do not allow pictures preventing predjudism. Mr Franzen also talks about how our less meaningful relationships become more important than our significant relationships; this again is untrue as you can still connect with those more important relationships through social networking and keep them vital. you also include a statement that talks about how the world is drifting towards disaster because we spend “countless hours glued  to Facebook” where as actually social networking keeps us updated with what’s going on in the world through the countless of people updating their status or tweeting what’s occurring on in the news. The rest of your article is filled with biased statements from ignorant people and one sided arguments however you acknowledge the truth of teens and social networking, but I want everyone to realize the truth behind all the lies.

 

Mr Franzen believes that online socialising is causing teens to become more shallow where as I disagree, by using the word shallow he already contradicts himself as he his stereotyping a mass a mass group based on a few examples. Also, some teenagers do not post any pictures on social networking sites therefore preventing any prejudicism and making sure someone likes you based on your personality and not on your looks.

 

Mr Franzen also says that our less meaningful relationships become more important than our meaningful relationships, this is again untrue because we can still speak to the important people in our lives through social networking as well as minor less meaningful relationships that are less important than others, so in actual fact social networking improves multiple relationships at the same time by allowing multiple chats with multiple people at the same time.

 

You also include statements by two people Louis CK and Susan Greenfield, the first being that Mr CK would not allow his children to have phones as he fears they would lose empathy; this is just one example and I strongly believe that allowing the use of phones would not cause the loss of empathy as empathy is gained and lost by personal experiences and the way you are brought up.You also include the statement from Ms Greenfield and she believes that parents are raising kids that have been disconnected from the real world where as social networking keeps us connected with news and so on and it is really up to how the parents want their child to be raised so really the amount of time teens spend on social networking is up to the parents.

 

To conclude, most of the evidence given by others are given by people that show no sign of reliability and you have only focused on the negatives of social networking not the positives. I disagree with your sources and your studies as they show no signs of evidence, nor do they seem to be a reliable source. Teens should not be viewed as internet zombies or not able to show empathy or can not be connected to the real world, however should be viewed as hopeful, young, responsible adults.  

 

Yours Sincerely


Nathan Smith