Digital Intimacy

After reading the article assigned to us, I put my thoughts together and formulated the main argument of the essay. the essay argued that today's society is growing ever more intimate (no sexual connotation at all just FYI) with itself through social media. People are knowing more and more about each other's personal lives without even trying. For instance, I could look at my News Feed on saturday and tell who had been partying and who hadnt. Its that simple Zuckerberg added the News Feed to Facebook to effortlessly bring everybody closer together. the News Feed allows for anyone to know anything about their friends. Its incredible how intimate everybody is with everybody. the article talks about "ambient awareness" which is propagated from relatively constant contact with one's friends and colleagues via social networking on the internet. Yes i experience this feeling every day. The paradox of this is that you actually arent spending time with any of your friends. Its kind of crazy, but you are learning more and more about them without actually being around them at all. The downfall is that you dont get the human contact, but the benefit is knowing that they're theoretically okay. Ambient update is the continuous updates made by everyone of your friends or followers therefore having a continuously updating news feed. many posts are skimmable because theyre often short enough to get the gist of what theyre saying, but in connection with our talks of literacy, many people may actually improve theyre speed of reading via reading tweets or Facebook posts quickly as you surf though your feed. The author uses the term "weak ties" when talking about relationships between friends because youre more inclined to stay online and look at Facebook or Twitter than to hangout with a buddy or something like that. This hurts us because it makes less social and more of an outcast and a creeper (in my opinion). 20 somethings feel pressured to have a facebook to keep in touch with their friends from high school or college or their hometown. The article defines literact in the 21st century with the ability to stay connected with your friends via social networking, but also to have that personal touch when spending time with them in real life.