The rise of the Internet has brought about a wide range of different opinions. While some have been content to simply remark about the amazing capability of the Internet in connecting people or leading global revolutions, others have learn that it pays to be critical of the impact that the Internet is having on society. Simply put, not all that glitters is gold when it comes to the Web. There have been many social consequences of the proliferation of social media sites, for instance, which have changed the way people use the Internet. With this in mind, two articles use different strategies to discuss the way that social media sites have effectively perverted human use of the Internet’s powerful capabilities. In Social Networking and the Death of the Internet, author Alfredo Lopez uses a heavy dose of history to demonstrate that social media sites have changed, and in some ways, eroded the way that the Internet has been used. His work is very technical, with its structure, waiting until very late in the article to even introduce the idea of social media sites.
On the other hand, Elise Hu, in her article, Facebook Makes Us Sadder And Less Satisfied, Study Finds uses a more unbiased, analytical approach to explaining some of the findings of psychologists on the use of social media sites on today’s Internet. While Lopez’s work is more of an editorial, offering deep insights into the nature of the Internet, Hu’s work is more journalistic in nature, reporting findings from those who have conducted studies. Hu makes herself less involved in the writing, while Lopez actively inserts his own opinions into his work. Despite the fact that Hu’s article structure is more direct, and her diction more concise, it is Lopez’s work that is more powerful because it provides greater detail in order to contextualize some of the changes that have taken place on the Internet and with how people use it today.
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"The Internet – Article Summary and Comparison".
There are many strengths to the approach taken by Lopez. Perhaps the biggest strength is in the clarity of his writing. Because his work is a bit longer than the work by Hu, he is able to use more detail in order to flesh out his rhetorical points. He does not need to rely on the previous knowledge of the reader, but rather, he can fully explain the development of the Internet and World Wide Web by giving a detailed recounting of the history of the two, going back to the development of the first computer. As he writes, “It’s a kind of birthday celebration. Twenty years ago, software developers at the University of Illinois released a web browser called Mosaic in response to work being done at CERN” (Lopez). The level of detail that the author uses also makes the work somewhat cumbersome. This is one of the weaknesses, it seems, of this approach. While the detail helps to provide context and understanding, it makes for a more difficult and lengthy read, and the author buries the lede in some respects. He does not get around to the point about social media sites until very late in the work, when he writes, “Social Networking is a marketing term. It isn’t a protocol. It uses nothing new, has added no new technological concepts. It is entirely based on the very same programming the Web has functioned on for two decades” (Lopez).
Perhaps the greatest strength of Hu’s work is the fact that she remains neutral. She writes from a journalistic perspective. Her organization is very straight-forward, and she does not wait long to get to the primary point. In fact, in the second paragraph, she writes, “A new University of Michigan study on college-aged adults finds that the more they used Facebook, the worse they felt” (Hu). Because she remains so neutral, she is able to communicate straight-forward facts without editorializing the subject. While this is a strength, it also leads to a weakness for the author. The author is not able to offer any complex explanations for the reader. Rather, she simply relies too heavily on quotes from people who have studied the topic. Perhaps the work could have been made better if she did not rely so heavily on quotes, and instead, had more of her own thoughts.
These two works are very strong in that they use logical appeals in order to communicate the seriousness of the issue at hand. The readers leaves both works knowing that the changes to how people use the Internet are creating psychological problems for individuals. At the same time, there is a weakness for both works. The authors are somewhat informal in their tone and in the way that they choose to write. This informality does not mesh well with the seemingly logical, academic approach that the two authors seek to take on this psychological subject. For instance, Lopez routinely uses ellipses in his writing. This is an informal device that is designed for meaning, and it is not used in academic work. At the same time, Hu also uses informal language in order to communicate the informality of the topic of social media. For instance, she uses the word “bummed” in the last paragraph, which is an extremely informal means of communicating emotion.
As the Internet has changed, more people have decided to write about it. With social media sites altering the nature of the Internet and how users choose to use it, people are naturally going to write various things in an attempt to explain the trend. Lopez wrote at length, giving a review of the history, and he inserts himself and his opinion into the work. Hu, on the other hand, takes a journalistic approach, and she is more direct. Even though Lopez’s work is somewhat wordy, and it does not come from a neutral place, it is the stronger work because of the context that it provides for the reader.
