How do you often use your twitter account? Are you always connected and obsessed with tweeting? Does tweeting make you happy? In the article of Peggy Orenstein “I tweet, therefore I am”, the author claims that people should speak of themselves and on their behalf. This Means that social media changed people`s life and left great influence on their attitudes. Nowadays, most people became addicted to using their social media accounts daily.
Summary of "I Tweet Therefore I am":
Talking about technology and the new inventions, that changed people`s life, has become the major concern of many people around the world. “I Tweet Therefore I am” is an article that discusses the remarkable effects of technology, especially social media, on people and relationships. Peggy Orenstein, the author of “I Tweet Therefore I am”, is famous for supporting the rights of the women in her writing and she is a famous writer in New York Times Newspaper.
In the article, the author tries to speak about her own experience with Twitter and reflects upon the different aspects of the experience that comes from using Twitter. She discusses the various aspects about the experience of using Twitter and explores how Twitter affects people and how important social media has become for people especially youth. The writer expresses in her article ideas that show how people use Twitter and how Twitter affects the representation of people online. Therefore, after the spread of social media websites among people, they turn to be addicted and suffer from psychological, mental and social problems.
Social media are important and maintain people to entertain their life; however, the overuse of social media websites would harm people`s life and leave negative impacts on their real relationships. The article “I Tweet Therefore I am” speaks about Twitter from the point of view of the author and speaks greatly about Orenstein`s opinions about Twitter. It does not offer solutions to what the author sees as possible negative points of Twitter, but it does offer an overall view of how Twitter and social media are very effective in the current timeline.
Twitter affects people and they always want to impress others by what they write in it, but it also helps people to discover the minds of others. In fact, that is a very good thing as it can enhance communication between people who have the same interests. This can be achieved easily through following and observing the timelines and tweets of people that mainly reflect their actual thoughts.
1- Social Media Like Twitter Are Wrongly Used:
Peggy Orenstein, in this article of "I Tweet Therefore I Am" is claiming that we should talk about ourselves more openly and easily now and then using social media. The author also confirms that the negative impacts of social media where users of social media are not even using the platforms in the appropriate way. We have been turned into a broadcasters to our people and fan base. We seek things that does not mean anything to us at all. However, we end up telling wrong facts about ourselves to show up and be presentable to different people not ourselves. The author uses a soft tone that shifts and elevates quickly and precisely to shake the audience and show them the sad facts they reached already.
The audience of “I Tweet, therefore I am” is supposed to be around 30-35, mostly politicians and businessmen. The article of "I Tweet Therefore I Am" ia very exciting and reached to young audience as well. In fact, social media websites have great roles in the life of most people as they maintained them to be more sociable, friendly and aware of new things.
2- The Idea of Writing 140 Characters and Self-Awareness:
The article of "I Tweet Therefore I Am" came along a year after the uprising of twitter where it is a major talk of everyone and the hype around the 140 characters where they are supposed to express themselves. Quick facts, twitter was first created in 2006. The article came after the hype of twitter in 2010 to a momentum where everyone was extremely obsessed with social media. The importance of Peggy’s article is that Peggy is trying to convince the reader to tweet for their own and nobody else. Peggy is also saying that what matters is to tell things of yourself precisely. The author is very clever to convince her reader by the use of statistics. Mentioning numbers makes the reader willing to believe what is written. Peggy tackled a troubling point when she expressed her idea that social media is not about encouraging self-promotion over self-awareness.
3- Peggy Orenstein As a Mother and Twitter:
The writer could create an attitude perfectly with her idea to win the audience attention. Peggy says she came to twitter late and she quickly acquired the needed skills to share her situations from her daily life not only her opinions on important matters. Being a mother is kind of inspiring to her as well. She claims positively her awareness of current affairs around her like “human rights abuses against women in Guatemala.” That helped her to support her claims of experience and informatively. Peggy could also allow the audience to see her established ethos which positively makes her argument more effective to unite our lives with twitter. The figurative languages used by Peggy like metaphor for emotional inspiration.
Peggy rely on Shakespeare when she compare about “If all the world’s stage, it has now become a reality TV show…” She also formulates pathos by using rhetorical questions, i.e. “Was it my joy at being a mother?” In addition, the start of her article with pathos with full-circle ending.
Analysis of "I Tweet Therefore I Am":
The article is very interesting and shocking at sometimes. Peggy’s style in writing is funny and impressive. Peggy could use statistics to create a shock to audience about how social media negatively affects us. I’d rate this article 8 as the way and language used in the article of "I Tweet Therefore I Am" is interesting to read. She could allow her audience to see her ethos which makes her argument effective. The use of figurative language used by Peggy is always interesting to read. Also, Peggy relied on Shakespeare as well in one her examples.
However, Peggy wrote an interesting article and effective one that would inspire people to use Twitter for different purposes. However, people should not let social media control their ideas and feelings. We should use them properly to be able to live peacefully and nicely. Briefly, Twitter is one of the most remarkable social media that managed to attract the attention of many users.
It is obvious that the article is very amusing and shocking in the same time. Speaking of amusement, Peggy’s style of writing is impressive and funny. On the other hand, it is shocking in terms of the facts about social media and how negatively we are deeply affected with it. On a scale of 0 to 10, the article of "I Tweet Therefore I Am" takes a rate of 8. The language used is perfect to transcend the facts and idea of the author. There are many strength points appear clearly throughout the article, such as, simple words, convincible claims, innovative technique as well as wise order and style.
1- Effect of Twitter on People`s Life Analysis:
Twitter was first developed in 2006. The of "I Tweet Therefore I Am" came one year after the rise of twitter as it was a major platform where everyone can express himself through using tweets and online posts. Most people used to log in twitter in order to express themselves. It was a momentum that everyone was starting to be obsessed with social media. Peggy’s article importance remains in her way to convince the reader to use twitter properly. She wants people to tweet for themselves not to impress others. Peggy is also telling that what is crucially important is to express precisely yourself. Peggy has been very selective to her words to convince readers using statistics.
Mentioning the numbers usually makes the reader willing to understand and believe. She also tackled a crucial point that when Peggy expressed her idea about social media. She said that social media should encourage self-promotion over self-awareness. Peggy impressively used figures and numbers to strike the appeal to logos right away. Peggy also dragged attention to how drastically empathy decrease in us since the 70th.
Peggy also could elaborate the facts of Ethos perfectly with her technique to win the audience attention. She explains her coming to twitter late and how she could acquire the needed skills to start sharing her thought and experiences. Peggy posted a lot about her ideas and life experiences on important subjects. Being a mother also helped her to be inspiring to others as Peggy claims how positively her awareness of the current affairs like human rights abuses against women in Guatemals for example. Peggy could spot some lights on these problems.
2- Twitter as a Method of Amusement Analysis:
The overuse of social media may lead people to be addicted who cannot live without using their social media accounts daily. The author speaks about her own experience with Twitter, how Twitter affects peoples’ opinions, what researchers find out about using social media and Twitter.
In addition, the writer tries to explore the reason why people use Twitter as a social media platform. Orenstein speaks about how she started her own experience from Twitter in comparison to others and how she later understood that what one writes shows what he thinks. People can build many judgments on the writings of others on Twitter and social media in general. People can follow each other on Twitter and this make them get affected by each other. The author tells that if one wrote about women’s rights on Twitter, he would be a supporter of women against any discrimination. Each account on Twitter has an aim like expressing self, admiration, getting supporters or even for seeing what others post.
Researchers found out that many people, especially young people construct their profiles to impress others. They do not think about what they should expose in public and what they should hide and keep private as the aim is just getting admiration. This happens though the adoption of words of others like thinkers, philosophers or lovers. They do this to tell the visitor of the profile that the owner of it is cultured.
In her article, Orenstein wonders about how that would affect peoples` interactions and communication. Moreover, social media mainly affect negatively the psychological life of their users through making one envious at others. It also enhances violence and vulgarity. People consider surfing the Internet and checking social media accounts as necessary activities throughout their day. In other words, they cannot bear the hardships of life and work circumstances without finding other imaginary means to show their feelings and attitudes. Most people tend to reflect their thoughts, experiences, as well as opinions through tweets or posts on their social media accounts. This makes people waste their time and miss the best moments in the real life.
3- The Problem of Addiction to Social Media Analysis:
Many authors have discussed the addiction of social media and their effect, but this addiction has not discussed in the way that Orenstein does. Though following Orenstein`s main points and what she discusses in her article, one would discover that Twitter is a mass platform that helps people in many ways to express themselves and gain followers and viewers.
However, since Twitter is so effective as it allows people to create a public persona for themselves that differs in some ways from their inner self and that is not always a very good thing for a person. Persons who suffer from severe types of stress in their real life, tend to use Twitter as a way out from such stresses. This happens through knowing peoples’ occasions, famous person’s news and chatting with friends.
Orenstein takes honesty as an approach in her article and she explains that she is already addicted to Twitter. Therefore, the author is not speaking from the superior point of view. I think that the weaknesses of the article are mentioning some disadvantages of Twitter without ever mentioning a solution that would make people reduce their use for Twitter or at least eliminate the problems that results that come from using social media.
Thus, people who read the article would find the conclusion inappropriate, as it does not contain recommendations and solutions. Briefly, Twitter is a great invention that could change peoples` minds and affected their entire life on both sides, positive and negative.
Summary:
To conclude, Peggy`s argument in her article named as "I Tweet Therefore I Am" is effective in the sense of convincing the readers to tweet about who they really are. It is very essential to become one with twitter and to go with the flow rather than being curious about what other fans think about you. Peggy assumes that it makes her feel good when Peggy tweets and it should make everybody happy to tweet about themselves.
