Josejuan Rodriguez ENC 3311 Major Assignment 3: Cultural Commentaries Our new social lives, the story of my fall

from social media grace My Saturday begins like any otherI wake up, eat breakfast, and see what to do for the day. More often than not I find myself visiting friends and commiserating about the past week, lamenting on work, school, and other pressures of life. We usually go out to dinner, visiting local restaurants of the UCF area, though most of the time our eatery of choice is Lazy Moon (you cant beat a $4 slice that includes a pint of beer, honestly). The billboards that line the roads have an all-too familiar phrase: Follow us on Facebook. Restaurants, grocery stores, even churches proudly present the phrase on their ads. Theres really no escape from themeven Lazy Moon has the phrase on their menu, along with a lesser seen, but not unfamiliar follow us on instagram. After ordering my food, I sit with my group and make more chit chat. As I look around, I notice a sea of phones, with some intently staring down upon their respective owners food, ready to immortalize the meal and share it to the internetFacebook, Tumblr, Instagram or whatever social platform the owner deems fit to share their oh-so delicious meal. Those phones that arent lovingly embracing the image of their owners food instead display their owners digital lives, eagerly showing their new Facebook notifications. Even my friends participate in the digital exchange (much to my own chagrin). It seems puzzling, that so many seem to be glued to their screens in such a social atmosphere. Are we living our digital lives out more than we are our own lives? Surely I must blowing this out of proportion and Im just being a sourpuss trying to ruin the fun but the digital presence cant be that encompassing, can it? I really hope not, but the evidence is overwhelming. Go to any modern concert and youll find a flurry of phone raised to sky to record a users favorite artist in action, or maybe even to record that really really cool laser show thats accompanying the music (Im looking at you, electronic dance

music festivals). Go to a store that doesnt brandish some form of social media on their windows. A twitter bird here, the eponymous Facebook F, its quite overwhelming. I suppose my growing distaste for social media is also due to my background, and the deletion of my Facebook account. I grew tired of the social media craze in 2011 when Facebook decided it makes enough money from making their users their product to third parties that it merited a debut in the stock market. The day before Facebooks IPO, I decided to cut the cord. I deleted Facebook and didnt look back. With my digital bridge burnt, I began to realize just how integrated social media is in my generations daily life. In a classroom setting I found myself being questioned if I have a Facebook account before asked for my email or phone number. Most of the time it was as acquaintances, asking for the sake of correspondence when out of the classroom. I submitted to the idea that it was for ease of use, and was content. As I grew more familiar with some of the acquaintances, we exchanged phone numbers, following the social ritualnow with that persons phone number, acquaintance became friend. Curiously, despite having each others phone numbers, all correspondence still occurred through Facebook. Outside of the classroom setting I began to notice a trendIt wasnt just new friends; old friends, too, began to make Facebook their primary means of communication. I didnt mind this at first, its the fad and people will move on to the next thing soon enough. The veil kept rising, however, and I didnt like what I was seeing. Friends when conversing would mention the daily goings of their Facebook activity, about how so and so commented on a picture and it became an incident, or how people were going out but werent Facebook official. Looking puzzled, my friend enlightened me that Facebook official is when a couple announces to the digital world that they are together by updating their status to In a relationship. Frankly, it seemed too stupid to be true, but alas, it was true. Friends stop remaining in contact, too. Of my 120 Facebook friends, 115 friends had the ability to contact meI gave my email and my phone number before jumping ship, but the contact

never came. I ran into a few old friends here and there, saying the same phrase: Where have you been? You fell off the face of the Earth! To this, the same refute: I gave you my phone number and email, and you never bothered contacting me, leading to an apology and subsequent awkward interaction. Five friends remained. A comfy, but acceptable number. Fast forward to the present, and that number has grown slightly, but the wounds left by social media abandonment has stayed largely the same. As Facebook grows as a social network (hitting over a billion mobile users this year and stealthily acquiring experimental technologies like Oculus Rift), it seems that dependence to the social network is inevitable in the future, and more and more companies will join in the Facebook game, and the follow us on Facebook signs will dominate the landscape. I cant help but wonder if the impact of this social media phase will dissolve friendships and the way we perceive relationships with one another. It changed the way my friends and I interacted, and frankly changed who I identified as my friends as a result. Is the digital life good, after all?

An examination of the word clarity Clarity. A word that joins that ranks of few others who are just important as a word as a concept. When you think of clarity, what comes to mind? [if you want me to save you the synapses, heres a few examples: the hazy to clear clich that allergy medicine Claritin uses in their commercials, that wonderful ray of sunshine that peers through the clouds on a dreary day, or when the metaphorical light-bulb lights up and you remember that phrase, that word, that idea thats been just bothering you for the last few days.] Webster defines clarity as the quality of being easily understood (Merriam-webster), and even breaks down the etymology of the wordbut it doesnt do justice to the word, to the concept that this word lends to us as human beings. The way I see it, clarity as a concept is the mental processes, the AH-HA! moment that one has when they come to a realization. Its when an individual realizes, or comes to terms with, an idea, an event (does this one seem a bit confusing? Think the five stages of griefwhen youve hit acceptance, its almost as if the world and your perception of your loss becomes a bit clearer. But! I digress), or even a solution to a problem. Its also when mentally things just click and you find the world to be clearer than the last way you perceived it. Like the Claritin commercials, life perceptually seems less hazy and those mental rainclouds dissipate, leaving you with a smile and a chipper attitude. Because Clarity as a concept and is not something that can be described neatly, I suppose the best way to understand it is this: Clarity lies beyond the letters that we have chosen to depict this word. It is the soft underbelly of the human psyche, our occasional Jimmy Cricket, a reminder of our humanity, of our own consciousness. Clarity is what has lent our great minds, including those in the likes of academia and philosophy, their ideas, their discoveriesarguably it may be the most important aspect of the human condition. Clarity has given us the automobile, the smartphone, the internet, and countless other pieces of technology. Now, at this point, you may be wondering if Im mistaking a simple accident to a moment of Clarity. My response? Are those accidents merely nothing more than catalysts for a moment of Clarity? When Sir Alexander Fleming discovered that his now defunct bacteria sample

was rife with mold, did he not look upon it and wonder why the bacteria around it was not growing? In his moment of clarity, he realized that the mold contained penicillin, thenceforth becoming the first antibiotic to be grown in a controlled environment and spawning the growth the antibiotic movement. Clarity is, of course, not restricted to the likes of great minds. Clarity embraces everyone at some point, and one can never expect Clarity to occur at a given moment. A colleague of mine learned that the hard way. She graduated university with a Bachelors degree, knowing what she was interested in, but not where she wanted to go in life. We spent countless hours conversing, with her grasping at straws, trying to understand her calling, but the Clarity never came. It wasnt until two years later that everything just clicked, and through Claritys embrace realized that her calling, her passion lied in municipal matters; more specifically, urban planning and development. Clarity can be quite spontaneous, as if it has a mind of its own, slowly guiding you at various avenues of life sometimes subtly, sometimes intensely. Its worth mentioning that Clarity is a slumbering beastone that awakens at its own beckoning. Unlike other mental processes, Clarity cannot be summoned at will, nor will the pursuit of Clarity yield any more fruitful than the lack thereof. Even so, the newfound comprehensibility isnt always what youd want to hear. Take, for instance, the people depicted in the show intervention. Many of these individuals are addicted to various vices and are deaf to the cries of their friends and family, except for a few addicts who experience Clarity, and realize their transgressions and the effects that it has on the people they love. Clarity here allows one to perceive their actions outside of their own perspective, and as a sobering experience, allows them to see the damage that they are doing to themselves and others. Lack of Clarity can be a rather unpleasant ordeal, and I find myself walking down the yellow brick road with no idea of which way Oz lies. As an upcoming graduate of the University of Central Florida, I find myself wondering how the cumulative knowledge Ive acquired over the past four years will apply to the impending futurethe real world (funny how that phrase is used, isnt it? As if it implies that the life of a college student isnt part of the world we live in. Again, another digression). I have no idea what job to apply for, what skills I think I have thatll make me successful.

Its hard to think, even harder to concentrate. I suppose the best way to equate this feeling with something more tangible is likening lack of Clarity with walking in a forest with heavy fog. Your visibility is small, and you can make shapes in front of you, but its never quite clear what they are. You want to get out of the forest, but you dont know your bearings. You walk around, but its so foggy you can only make out some shapes here and there. You try using trees as mental landmarksbut wait. Didnt you just walk past that tree? An uneasiness begins to creep in. You worry. You wonder if youre walking in circles, and you cant tell because the fog is too thick and you lack the bearings. You find yourself growing more and more anxious: hoping, wishing, hell, begging the fog to subside. But you realize its not something that will go away on its own. As a cautious optimist, I keep my fingers crossed and hope that the fog in the forest will clear. Maybe the fog will lift, and I can escape the forest. Maybe Ill have an AH-HA! moment, and get an idea of how to proceed with the life past graduation in the so-called real world. Maybe it wont, and Ill remain stuck in fog, trudging on, and hoping that at some point the light will shine and I find my way back. I sense Im not the only one who feels this way, and others are experiencing a lack of clarity in their livesespecially those like myself who will embracing the real world soon and graduating from their respective schools, universities, or even moving on to bigger and better things in life. To you, I say; remember, Clarity is like a beam of light in the dark, and allows us to see what we were blind to before. Its enlightening glow pierces the heavens and allow us to live at peace once more. But, much like a beam of light on a cloudy day, it will be rare, but it will be damned rewarding. Yes, it may take days, weeks, even months for the light of clarity to grace you with its presence; and yes, the light it shines may be wonderful, but it may also be sobering. However Clarity decides to embrace you, I hope that it enriches your life, and helps give you purpose.

Works Cited "Clarity." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.