raffi

American youth are in the midst of a new era: the era of technologicallyadvanced, highly priced electronic gadgets. Nine year old children own cellularphones, and know more about computers than their helpless parents. Kids carrya piece of equipment ranging from $150-$400 on them at all times, a piece ofequipment, mind you, which has most likely been purchased by the guardian ofthe minor. Homes possess a direct connection to the Internet at all timesinstead of the feeble dial up connection. Like drugs, young Americans havebecome addicted to these material objects. I don’t have much of a problem withthe cell phones, I-pods, and PSP’s. What I do have a problem with is Myspace.When aim first came out, people were perfectly content with "buddy info" whereone could write a 250 word blurb about themselves. But the desire for attentiongave birth to "buddy profile" then to "xanga" then to "live journal" where onecouldwrite extensively about his or herself. Yet all of these pages could not quenchthe never ending thirst for attention. So a new site was created. Notcoincidentally, it was the one that that gave the owner the most attention andunlimited possibilities to bolsterone’s confidence: Myspace.And yes, in thebeginning it was very innocent, a picture of ones self, a little about themselves and maybe a spiffy backround. Myspace followers started off as the few people who had used “Xanga” and“LiveJournal” but upgraded to Myspace. Soon it drew in the people who neverwasted their time before with the “personal web page”. Myspace didsomething smarter than all the other similar pages. When a person without aMyspace account clicked on the picture at the top of any given Myspace, a pagewould pop-up where one could sign up for a Myspace account quickly, easily,and freely. The gain of viewing pictures over the loss of time in signing up wasso great that people took the 2 minutes to sign up. Many sources stated theynever intended to use the account, just look at pictures. Once signed up peoplefigured why not use it? Everybody else seemed to be getting so much attentionthat others felt left out and wanted in. It was incredible how fast it becamepopular. In the beginning girls used Myspace more frequently than guys. Guyswere reluctant to publicly admit that they enjoyed looking at photos and talkingabout their personal interests; feminine attributes. I personally saw girls makea Myspace for a guy. Soon that guy would get sucked into the attention. Otherguys saw their friend was using it, taking the pressure off of acting feminine.After that, it seemed everyone was hooked onto the world of Myspace.That is when things went out of control. Myspace turned from a page ofpictures and blurbs, to a sick game of popularity. I had a myspace once, but quickly deleted it as I watched; horrified, at the sickening events taking place. I first realized how wrong myspace was when I saw my best friendslooking at their friends’ friends, andsending “friend requests” to any person they slightly knew. I asked why they wouldget friends on myspace who weren’t even their friends, and they told me that the goal was toget as many friends as possible. As many "friends" as possible, even if theyweren't actually your friends in the real world? Indeed it was true, and I soonrealized what it was all about. Sending a “friend request” over the internet was aharmless proposal and was rarely rejected. Imagine walking up to a person youhardly know in the halls at school and asking that person to be your friend. Alittle awkward? Once gaining that friend over the internet, you would not needto further the relationship beyond a friendly comment here and there. With solittle effort, a person had every friend documented for every one to see. Inreality, gaining friends is much more complicated. People reject othersoutrightly, people’s personalities clash, people have arguments and don’t knowhow to resolve them; let’s face it, real relationships are not easy. Also theamount of friends one has cannot be seen in the real world by looking at anygiven person. The reason for sending “friend requests” to random people isbecause one can throw away reality and deal with a much simpler and easierway of living; through the internet. Myspace is a setup for people to put on asuperficial mask of amiability. Why would anybody be mean? In reality somepeople can’t help being mean, sarcastic, critical, judgmental or even bitter. Butin Myspace one can monitor everything typed, and can read over it to makesure it sounds exactly the way one wants it to. In reality, people pick andchoose their friends based on their likes and dislikes. On Myspace a person thatyou dislike is no big deal because you can keep your distance from that personwith typing. For example, I knew a kid who was overweight and obnoxious withfew friends. Once Myspace came out, he left comments on many girls’ pagesthat were friendly and nice. Things like "You're beautiful" Soon girls said things like “He’s not that bad, if yougot to know him, he’s a really nice guy!” But in class he was the same oldobnoxious kid.When looking through comments on the pictures of a Myspace you willunderstand exactly what I am talking about. The majority of the commentsfrom girl to girl are like this, “You look so good in this pic I’m so jealous!” Fromguy to girl they are, “Whoa, you are so hot, we gotta hang out soon!” Positivethings that are rarely said face to face are frequently the first things expressedon Myspace.Kids get sucked into this positive peer attention. Since direct positiveattention is so rare in reality Myspace becomes addictive. Kids take Myspaceeven more seriously than classes in school. One of the first things kids do upongetting home from anywhere is to neglect their schoolwork andcheck to see if they have a new comment or a new friend. I’ve seen desperatekids asking people in real life to comment on their Myspace. Myspace is like thealter-ego of a person. There’s the person you know and see daily, and there’sthe Myspace version of them. Overall, the way people treat Myspace isrepulsive; a second life, a phony life. If you can’t handle living in reality, go livein the surreal twisted game of make believe: Myspace.