Social Media Takeover

Steven Pinker and Peggy Orenstein both address the issues of social media through their respective articles, entitled “Mind Over Mass Media” and “I Tweet Therefore I am.” Steven Pinker believes that despite the common belief that social media and technological advance are ruining human intelligence, it is in fact quite the opposite. Technology has put us more in the reach of knowledge, as long as we control our temptations to use it for every little thing. Pinker uses examples and statistics to back up the fact that the common belief is false, that crime rates have gone down with advances in technology. He also uses logos to explain that social media is not detrimental to scientific progress, thus supporting the fact that social media does not make us stupider.

Peggy Orenstein believes that social media has taken a very positive turn into a person’s psychology by allowing them to be more open with the world. She explains how social media makes every article of information exposed to the world by people makes them self-conscience about how they appear. The things that they say in the heat of the moment via Twitter can define who they are to everyone else. It’s almost like a performance that they have to perfect. I enjoyed reading this essay; she uses an anecdote in the beginning to hook the reader in and make it relatable. She also provides evidence to back up her claim, citing fellow credible authors that have conducted surveys among social media users. I also like how at the end of her essay, she includes an enumeration of questions that are self-reflecting and very relatable. It makes the reader stop and think about how social media has affected their own lives, and possibly dig deeper.