Jessica Bleyer Bleyer 1

Ms. Farnsworth
English 102
6 April 2010

1. “Growing Up on Facebook” by Peggy Orenstein seems to make the most cogent

argument. The writer uses a lot of details and backs her argument with many
facts. She also approaches the piece with many different ideas. First off, she
explains how someone uploaded a photo of her when she was sixteen. She hasn’t
communicated with the person in a decade. Secondly, she uses rates and
percentages:
-an estimated 276% increase in Facebook users ages 35-54 in the past 6
months
-25 million users are under the age of 25
Orenstein uses personal experiences with Facebook along with worldly experiences.

2. “Down with Facebook!” written by Matt Labash has the most antagonistic and
rebelling tone. Labash expresses his hatred toward Facebook. One example he
uses is the comparison between Facebook and porn. Labash states:
“Time Magazine recently declared Facebook more popular that porn. But who are
they kidding? Facebook is porn. With porn, you watch people take off their clothes
and abase themselves in public. On Facebook, where there’s technically an anti-
nudity policy, you get to figuratively do the same.” Labash also uses many other
details of how degrading Facebook is.

3. “Facebook vs. Reality: Who Needs to Get a Life?” by Steve Fox seems to focus
more on the social problem that Facebook is “better” than life itself. Fox made a
comparison between Facebook and real life. Facebook happened to win. The
problem he conveys is that Facebook is better than life; which happens to be
extremely scary. People are relying on Facebook for comfort and happiness.
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4. The Involuntary Opinion seems to relate the most with the article, “The Cult of
Me” written by Gary Tetz. Both of these pieces convey the fact that Facebook is,
in fact, brainwashing. Facebook may not be considered “brainwashing,” but it has
a lot of qualities of it. People aren’t technically being hypnotized by it but because
it is so common and familiar to the society, people join to either fit in, or avoid
the “not following with the crowd” label. At the end of the Opinion piece, it states
that we have been bombarded to think positively about Facebook, even if we
haven’t used it. Facebook has become so common that if one does not choose to
join Facebook, they are technically not following society. In the “Cult of Me,”
this article describes the actual life of this “Facebook cult.” It states everything
from the profile itself to friends; which are considered the “cult members.”

5. Facebook and Generation Y are both extremely attention-craving. People long to

be apart of these groups. The both deal with technology, it seems. Generation Y
seems to be more dependant on technology, just as Facebook is. In the “tech-
savvy” portion of the description on Generation Y, it states that the members of
Generation Y depend on technology to perform their jobs better. The members are
“plugged in” 24-7. Facebook has now made a way to be “plugged in” like
Generation Y is. Facebook has gone mobile, it is part of almost every website,
people can log into it whenever they feel, and it is accessible almost everywhere.
Both of these have sucked people into this “internet life.” People are so
dependant on this life for comfort and happiness. Because both are so accessible to
different areas of the world, people are stuck on them. Generation Y seems to be involved
in almost every aspect of real life, just as Facebook is. It seems as if both are taking over
the world. People are literally giving up their every day lives to join this internet life.