Reaction to Zadie Smith Class Discussion

After our discussion in class, I realized that most of us shared the same opinion concerning our thoughts on social media. Each of us are living in a society that is almost completely reliant on technology. As a result of this, we are affected more by technology than earlier generations. There was point made in class about how we rely on technology to communicate and how it is unrealistic. This is something that is going to negatively affect our generation concerning interactions in the work and school place, as well as every day interactions. When a person is responding to  an e-mail or text message, it is not a realistic scenario because the person responding has time to think about their response. This time difference is going to be problematic for people surrounded by technology concerning person to person interactions.

The idea of Mark Zuckerberg’s version of us is something really interesting because it is true. I think people find the need to put themselves into categories especially with social networks. People on Facebook can easily put themselves into different categories in order to identify with others like them. However, this raises the question of our social media presence coming into our every day life. I think this makes people feel required to be the person they portray on social media which may conflict with their life outside of social media. Another interesting point brought up in class was that some jobs require you to have social media in order to promote their business. This example shows how important technology is in today’s society and how younger generations may have an advantage over older ones. A person’s social media and actual human presence are almost being forced to mesh in an instance like this where they are supposed to promote their employer. However, I think this is problematic as well because some employers use social media as a way to decide on hiring someone or not. Therefore, if there is something that will harm a person’s chances in the work world, then social media is something that needs to be avoided. Social media is still developing and reaching different generations which is causing it to be problematic in different instances.