The way people connect today is changing too fast. Shortly after accepting my admissions offer, I began to receive friend requests from people I have never met that were going to be attending SMU. At first I didn’t think much of it, I mean after all everyone has Facebook…
Fast-forwarding to months ago, I was reading Zeitoun by Dave Eggers. Zeitioun, a native of Syria, depicts being thrown to the ground with a leg in his back. The treatment results from authorities raiding one of Zeitoun’s tenant’s homes and taking him to a police station. The description of his treatment raises question: Why was he not given a chance to explain himself? Perhaps given the severity of the situation plus fear, those in power took no chances to listen to explanations. Or, based on his skin tone and accent, it reminded authorities of the disaster on September 11th.
The passage provoked further discussion though: How can we share pieces of our lives by adding people randomly on Facebook, but the same can’t be done when someone is in front of us? In other words, Zeitoun wasn’t given the opportunity to tell his story, yet somehow via Facebook people feel at ease to share their lives with others not even knowing them. Is technology changing the way we live for the better? Maybe we are becoming too shallow as a whole, and just accept theses requests to have more “friends” only to later realize a person’s profile looked better than they truly are. 
I can completely relate to your post having thought about the matter quite a bit over a certain period of time. I like the comparison you made between Zeitoun and the Facebook issue. People have been becoming somewhat insignificant to relating to those we see upfront but being more welcoming to cyber profiles who we have only their profiles to judge about. I really like the way you put your insight to it. It was very concise.
ReplyDeleteI would ask if you and your new SMU friends were all on Facebook, why weren't you using Facebook to discuss the summer common reading? LOL
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