Wade Abbott

Prof. Brown

Eng. 1B

2-17-13

Don’t Listen to the Web; Be Yourself

            In this ever-increasingly digital age we live in, use of the Internet has become ingrained into the very fabric of our society.  Unless you have lived deep in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest your whole life, chances are you know what the Internet is, and you probably use it on a weekly, if not daily, basis.  Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter almost seem to rule the world.  Not only do these websites attract individual users for their own individual use, but they are attracting major companies.  This is only logical.  With so many people using these social networking sites, it only makes sense for companies to advertise their products and services by creating Facebook and Twitter accounts.  So, with the billions of people accessing the web at this very moment, some important questions must be asked.  One of these important questions could be phrased like this:  Does the Internet promote or suppress the individuality of the user?  Many people, who are likely Facebook and Twitter users themselves, will tell you that the web is an outlet for them to let their uniqueness, creativity, and individuality fly free.  In this day and age with hoards of people using these sites at every minute of the day, wouldn’t it be more original or unique of a person not to partake in the daily ritual of posting about irrelevant topics or updating their statuses every five minutes?  After all, isn’t that what individuality truly is?  Going against the grain?  Taking the path less traveled?  Or not doing what everybody else is doing?  In this author’s opinion, who, by the way, has never had a Twitter account and recently deactivated his Facebook account due in part to this very issue, the internet suppresses the individuality of the user.   

            An example of the Internet suppressing individuality can be found in an article published in the New York Times on July 21, 2010, titled, “The Web Means the End of Forgetting.”  In 2006, Stacy Snyder was 25 years old and a teacher in training at a high school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  On her MySpace profile, she had posted pictures of herself at a Halloween party.  At this party she was dressed as a pirate.  In one of the pictures she could be seen in her costume while drinking from a plastic cup, with the caption to the picture saying, “Drunken Pirate” (Rosen 1).  Well, as you can imagine, her supervisor soon discovered the photos and told her they were “unprofessional” (Rosen 1).  The Dean of the school she was attending, which was Millersville University School of Education, told her she was “promoting drinking in virtual view of her underage students” (Rosen 1).  Long story short, the school denied her a teaching degree, just days before her graduation.  She would go on to fight this denial but would be unsuccessful.  By posting these pictures, Stacy Snyder was just being herself or, as you could call it, an “individual.”  This is a perfect example of the Internet suppressing one’s individuality.  These pictures, which were posted in a completely innocent matter, came back to haunt

Ms. Snyder and eventually led to her losing her job and the degree she had worked hard for.  If MySpace, or the Internet for that matter, did not exist, these pictures would never have been posted, and she would never have been fired, and the individuality of Ms. Snyder would never have been suppressed. 

            Since I deactivated my Facebook account about one month ago, I don’t feel like a new person, but I feel like a more true version of myself than I was when I was scrolling up and down my news feed.  Although at first, I kept picking up my phone to go to my Facebook application, I do not think about Facebook very much anymore.  I do not feel the constant urge to see what everybody else is doing and posting about.  I do not feel like I need to post some weird or artsy quote, just like everybody else, just to be “individual” or to be noticed.  Nowadays, I have found that I am enjoying more “me-time.”  I find more joy in the hobbies I participate in.  I just find life more rewarding and enjoyable now that I do not feel that I have to post pictures and statuses of what I just did everyday.  Basically, I am living life for me nowadays... not anyone else, or the Internet for that matter.  In my own experience, life is good without Facebook. 

Dr. Himanshu Tyagi, psychiatrist at West London Mental Health Trust, explains this phenomenon in an article from “Medical News Today,” published July 4^th, 2008.  She explains that “people used to the quick pace of online social networking may soon find the real world boring and unstimulating, potentially leading to more extreme behavior to get that sense”

(RCP 1). 

            Another example of how not just the internet but social networking sites in particular are causing us to lose our sense of individuality can be found in a review of Andrew Keen’s book, Digital Vertigo, published in USA Today on August 31^st, 2012.  Keen says, “Privacy is not the only thing lost by using social media.  Users can lose their sense of individuality to a kind of mass conformity” (USA 1).  This is exactly what I meant earlier.  While I was on Facebook, I noticed that everyone tended to post about similar things and post similar, often the same, links.  I often would wonder if people even knew what they were posting about or if they were just doing it because other people were doing it.  Keen also explains this, quite brilliantly.  He says, “We are living in an increasingly conformist, orthodox, groupthink culture, and part of that has to do with the cult of the social network” (USA 1).

Even stand-up comedian Dylan Moran understands the predicament we now face with the Internet and social networking sites.  In an interview by Domenic Cavendish for

The Daily Telegraph, Moran tells Cavendish this after being asked what he thought about Facebook:  “I fear we might be losing the basic human facility to be alone – and with that you throw out independent decision making, what to trust, what not to trust, key stuff, a perilous loss” (Cavendish 1). 

            Now people who oppose my position that the internet creates conformity and suppresses individuality commonly say the internet, specifically social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, promote individualism by giving people a voice, a voice that they are not likely to share in the real world due to fear of rejection, shyness, or whatever it may be.  To these people these sites give them an outlet for their creativity and individuality to flourish.  What ends up happening, more often than not, is that these normally quiet people discover the Internet, or Facebook, and feel a newfound sense of independence.  In turn, they will take a position on some sort of argument and state their opinion, often repeatedly and very loudly, just like everyone else.  So, in a sense, it is true that these sites, chat rooms, and the Internet not only breed conformity but echo chambers. 

            All in all, the Internet has done some amazing things for mankind, including even bringing countless people together from all over the world.  But at the same time it has created a culture of conformity and echo chambers, not individuality.  Every time a person logs onto Facebook or Twitter and posts some picture or link that he or she has seen somebody else post, that person’s sense of individuality is being suppressed little by little, and oftentimes, by the time the person realizes it, if they realize it at all, it is too late.  They have already contributed to the movement of mass conformity that is being bred by the Internet and, in particular, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.  In this author’s opinion, if one wants to be original and gain some sense of individuality back, that person should immediately deactivate his or her social networking accounts.  Though it may be hard to believe, I have survived the last month without Facebook and Twitter.  There is a whole world out there just waiting at one’s fingertips.  Not everyone and their brother need to know what you are doing at every moment of the day.  Doing things for oneself and not the recognition of others can do wonders for a person’s sense of individuality. 

Works Cited

Rosen, Jeffrey. "The End of Forgetting." The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 July                            2010. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.

"'Facebook Generation' Faces Identity Crisis." Medical News Today. MediLexicon International,                     04 July 2008. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.

"USA TODAY." USATODAY.COM. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.

Cavendish, Dominic. "THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MORAN Stand-Up's Mr Mumbly-  

Stumbly Comedian, Writer and Actor Dylan Moran Talks to Dominic Cavendish about His Mistrust of Modernity." The Daily Telegraph: 7. Sep 27 2008. The Advocate (Stamford); Baltimore Sun; Business Dateline; Greenwich Time; Hartford Courant; Los Angeles Times; Morning Call; Newsday; Orlando Sentinel; ProQuest Newsstand; Sun Sentinel. Web. 18 Feb. 2013 .