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I’m So Totally Digitally Close To You

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The Impact of Social Networking in Life The article “I’m So Totally, Digitally, Close To You (Brave New World of Digital Intimacy)” (2002) is written by Clive Thompson, who is also a blogger and columnist. The author aims to explain the users’ attraction of Facebook, Twitter and other forms of “incessant online contact” through his text. Since social networking has become a nearly ubiquitous aspect of human contemporary life, Thomson has effectively illustrated the invasion of the social media into human daily lives, how people are commanded by it. He later goes on to explore the benefits of social networking sites and a few challenges of the usage assumptions. Facebook is great because it is a way for people to keep in contact with …show more content…

‘A stream of everything that’s going on in their lives,’ as Zuckerberg put it” (p.544). However, this new Facebook’s feature can be backfired because Facebook invades users’ privacy. Many users felt like their privacy was completely infiltrated, just about everything users updated or changed was instantly blasted out to hundreds of friends. News Feed has kept all the users’ information “loud”, and allowed people to see pictures and posts, which could give out information that users might not want their friends to know. Users claim that News Feed features leave the door open for people to 'creep'. “Facebook has always tried to push the envelope” (p.545) and “Everyone is freaking out” (p.544). Using people’s first reaction to the Facebook’s “News Feed” feature, Thompson later explains the privacy problem that this new feature may have caused. Thompson tries to inform the readers both side of the benefits and disadvantages using Facebook. The author creates a great connection with the readers by doing so, makes the readers feel that he’s on the same with them, that he understands the whole circumstances. Users were skeptical at first according to Thompson and that’s due to “…at a time [News Feed] means stretching people and getting them to be comfortable with things they aren’t yet comfortable with. A lot of this is just social norms catching up with

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