DOES SOCIAL MEDIA MAKE US LONELIER? Warren Zhu, Year 12, Churchill I. Introduction
As beings thrown into a world of entities that manifest themselves as equipment, we come to
Two qualities distinguish social media from
understand ourselves through using—engaging
previous technologies: egocentrism and democracy.
with—them.
Social media is more egocentric than previous
leads to ontological change: when social media
technologies because, rather than consuming
changes how we interact with the world, it
information selected by others and for others, it
changes us. This is why Walter Benjamin writes
tailors that information for the individual. This
that “human sense perception…is determined not
egocentrism is compounded by social media’s
only by nature but by historical circumstances as
democratic
well.” [1]
nature
where
each
person
can
Technological change, therefore,
broadcast, i.e. speak out to the public rather than simply receive information. Instead of passive
To account for social media’s technological—and
consumption, social media provides us with
correspondingly ontological—shift, then, it is
functions such as ‘like’, ‘comment’, ‘share’, etc.,
perhaps
endowing each individual with a democratic
Arendt’s distinction between solitude and loneliness
voice, alongside ‘report’, ‘block’, and ‘follow’
as a way to understand how social media’s specific
allowing individuals to shape their interactions to
technology
their own ego. Whereas older technologies like
Loneliness, which Arendt describes as being
newspapers are forced to appeal to diverse
“deserted
audiences, social media’s functional malleability
[2]
myself”
most
helpful
predisposes by
human
to
introduce
us
to
company
Hannah
loneliness. but
also….
is not physical but psychical: it strikes
and democratic egocentrism allow it to be shaped
when one is bereft of others’ opinions for it is
to appeal only to the individual.
only when we encounter other opinions—another viewpoint
on
a
world
that
manifests
itself [3]
This technological change is not one we can easily
diversely—that we encounter other persons.
dismiss
are individuals by virtue of our opinion—and it is
because,
as
Heidegger
technology is itself a way of knowing.
[1] [2] [3]
Illuminations, p.217 Life of the Mind, p.76 The Human Condition, p.58-59
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suggested,
this action, Socrates’ examination of the doxa
We
