By Alyck Horton
We live in an era of constant integration: At any given moment we’re connected to millions of other people—tweeting, liking, clogging up servers with pictures of our meals and showing off to our friends how “white girl wasted” we got last night with lots of folks.
Miles sanguinetti/VANGUARD STAFF
What is this doing to our culture? Are we so desperate for attention that we’ll stand in front of a bathroom mirror for an hour taking pictures of ourselves?
Sitting in the back row of a lecture hall, it’s hard not to notice what’s happening on the screens of the students sitting in front.
The entire hall is illuminated by the glow of MacBook and iPad LCDs, which, in theory, students are using to take notes.
But instead of witnessing the recording of information, you’ll notice 220 students logged onto Facebook, chatting with their friends, building farms and completely ignoring the professor they pay to teach them.
Social network sites can be a useful tool for keeping in touch with long lost friends and family, to professionally network and to cyber-stalk the cute girl in your history class.
There’s a sense of security when we know what our loved ones are up to.
It’s when grandma in Chicago can see her grandson’s prom photos, or when you can decide if your best friend’s new boyfriend is a douche bag, or when you let your family know you’re doing well in your new apartment away from home that social network sites serve as useful tools.
As of this month, Facebook has approximately 1 billion active monthly users. The majority of them are between 18 and 34, and a little more than half are female.
Users upload 250 million photos every day. What’s that, like, 150 million party photos and animal snapshots?
Mediocre anecdotes, photo sharing, link sharing, quotes from famous people and countless other “going to the gym” or “having a beer tonight” posts earn, along with others, 2.7 billion “likes” per day.
The big one, though: Facebook accounts for nearly 25 percent of all Internet page views in the U.S. Let that sink in for a minute.
Of all the information, useful data, videos of stuff on Mars and other things that could better us and spread knowledge, people are spending large chunks of their lives, not gaining knowledge or being productive, but rather talking about how drunk Liz got on Saturday.
Facebook generates about $1 billion per year in revenue, and Twitter brings in about half of that.
Together, these companies, which produce no physical product, earn enough money per year to put 214,285 students through one year at PSU.
As people fabricate a sort of virtual life, they become more narcissistic and more prone to anxiety, depression and antisocial behavior, according to California State University, Dominguez Hills psychology professor Larry D. Rosen.
Social network sites are theatrical stages where people play a role, each with their own degree of truthfulness.
We compete with each other; we must always look our best for our “profile pictures,” and we need to be “friends” with everyone we know and everyone we’ve ever met.
The combination of vanity and self-loathing perpetuated by this phenomenon has led to a population of micro-celebrities.
Social networking and celebrities have helped shape us into a culture of impatience, gluttony and self-indulgence. As St. Augustine said, “It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.”