Naysayer response

What makes the internet so validating is when you’re exposing a small piece of yourself to essentially thousands of people, getting the response you want feels like a success and makes you want to keep doing it. As Megan’s tweets went viral Chen reported that, “by the end of the day, Phelps – Roger had more than a thousand followers. She took the incident as an encouraging sign that Westboro’s message was well suited to social media. She loved that Twitter let her talk to larger numbers of people without the filter of a journalist” (Chen, 3). Chen’s point here is that word spreads quickly online and it’s the positive response of seeing yourself get attention that gives you a rush, making you want more. Yet some readers may challenge this view by insisting that we don’t actually crave social media and it’s just something to do, like a hobby. Well yes and no. Yeah maybe scrolling on instagram is nothing other than a way to kill time for some, but then for the rest of us, there’s this little satisfying feeling that comes with getting a bunch of notifications and we realize that maybe we want to keep that kind of feeling around. You might say “well that’s ok it’s still being social, talking to people over the phone is just like talking to someone in person’. It’s just not quite the same though, the attention that we receive online isn’t as personal as a one on one conversation because how many times have you responded LOL to a text that didn’t even make you laugh. Exactly. Yes, communicating online is a nice way to keep in touch when needed, but in general our instagrams followers aren’t the people we should be worried about. We are training our brains to care so much about what all these people think about us when they probably wouldn’t even be able to point us out in a crowd. I’ve come to learn that the days I appreciate the most are the days when I’m out with my friends and barely even touch my phone. There’s such a lack of intimacy with talking online, and the physical aspect of a friendship is something that cannot be felt through a phone screen.