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Cole Parrett

Instructor Sarah Haak

English 1510

4 October 2017

Impact of Technology

In the article Social Networks, Social Media, and Social Diseases, Enrico Coiera, states

why we should push to make technology more significant in our lives to better us. Since we deal

with our phones, social media, social networks, and social diseases in our face all day, why dont

we use the same device to help ourselves? In addition, we have to be careful on what we put out

there through our phones because it is out there for everyone to see and obtain any personal

information about you. Another way technology can better the world and the people by using the

multiple ways of networking to help and make our lives easier all around. Although this sounds

perfect, there are also some downsides to running our lives through a cellular device. The goal of

this piece, or the pitch, is to show how all these different forms of social ways can affect how we

live. While the author, Enrico Coiera, states all the positive parts, he still gives all the complaints

or the downside to all of this. Enrico realizes how effective the social media word is, which is

why he decided to write this in the time frame he did, 2013. While in 2013, 71% of adults used

Facebook (Duggan). As well as Twitter, 18% of adults used Twitter in 2013 (Duggan). As

smartphones truly kicked off in 2013 the social media, social networking, and social diseases

didnt officially start till the apps on the phones were created. . Having all this in ones writing

makes the reader itch for more and more.

The author, Enrico Coiera, did an excellent job in constructing his academic piece. His

work is certainly one of a kind. The fact that this article looks like a newspaper and flows like
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one is awesome while still talking about an up to date topic. Also, the use of pictures, different

colored words, bigger font size, and also having certain words bold helps grab the readers

attention. All of these help the paper be more modern and have the attention of all ages not just

singling out one age group. Another key structural item that Enrico used was when he would

introduce a topic that the average reader would not understand, he would have a hyphen right

after saying the word and have a short descriptive sentence or two to help the reader wrap their

brain around how this topic relates to the pitch. For example, Public health and health

promotion So far, public health and services seem to use social media mainly for one way

broadcasting of public messages (Coiera). To be able to put something like this so strategically

placed and still have a constant flow is key part in this writing. One final structural piece of

Enricos piece is the time frame in which it was written in. In 2013, which is the official boom of

social media, networking, and diseases started rather than when smartphones were released. If

you do this well, it makes the reading a lot more interesting and enjoyable to read!

Every piece of writing grabs the attention of the reader by being able to relate to them in-

life experiences. You can say these are the significant parts of the writing. In Social Networks,

Social Media, and Social Diseases the significant parts are caused by what we do in everyday

life, when locked up in a hospital it helps to have social media, also having both sides or both

viewpoints are a very key part of the scholarly writing. For example, back in my home town we

had a kid that was diagnosed with leukemia. A week before he was diagnosed with leukemia, we

learned about a college football star named James Connor. He was diagnosed as well with

leukemia and we learned all about his story. When we found out a fellow brother on our football

team, Mac Reese, was diagnosed our instant reaction was to tweet at James Connor about Macs

story to inform him that he isnt the only one that went through this. Just like the author said we
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used one of the most popular social media sites: Twitter. James Connor came in contact with

Mac over the phone and came and visited him while he was in the hospital. This is just a prime

example how reaching out through a social media app can affect someones motivation to keep

pushing and not give up. Another small thing we did for Mac during this rough time in his life is

that we created a go fun me for people to donate money to his family to help pay for this costly

procedure and this wasnt the only thing we did to try to help. As his story was getting more

well-known many other schools decided to join as one. Those schools created their own fund

raiser and donated half the money directly to Mac and the other half to cancer research. This is

just a prime example of how reaching out through a social media app can affect someones

motivation to keep pushing and not give up. As well as bringing a community together as one for

a good cause.

Some binaries about this scholarly writing is the fact that the author decided to put both

sides of the reasoning on why social media helps but is also can be a distraction. As you read the

title you can see straight away that there are benefits as well as negatives in the article. Going

through a tough time and being able to communicate how you feel to people who care and love

you is key! Just how Mac went through the ups and downs of battling leukemia just like

someone would deal with the ups and downs of social media. To go into detail, Mac was loving

life before he found out he had cancer and was living the dream. The second he found he could

potentially die because he had leukemia, he was at an all-time low. In social media, the same

thing can happen, you can be having fun and minding your business while on Twitter or

Facebook, but then someone can start cyber bulling you. Getting cyber bullied is terrible and

makes you want to rethink who you are, how you look, and how you act. This is a possible
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metaphor that someone can interpret when they have an experience like Mac going through

leukemia.

Some questions or interpretations that as a reader that could come up are would this

actually work or something along those lines. Enrico was able to give multiple reasons on why

this would work and how it can be effective. On the other note, he could just be doing this for a

persuasive project and he is just a student that happened to have a valid point. In which his

teacher told him that he should publish his work and caught the eyes of many people. Also, this

very well could have been an article in a newspaper just to spice it up and see if anyone would

read the newspaper again. Another interpretation, is that this could have started as a survey to see

who agreed with this topic and who is willing to make this happen. Questioning if this truly

works while reading the Coieras work is reasonable. This is caused by majority of the

population grew up while the smart phone business kicked off. This means that not many of

them will truly know how to operate one, want to use one, or support this push for using the

social media and networking to better us. In order to make these people get on Coieras side he

could offer classes to demonstrate everything they need to know about using and operating the

phone they have. This will help them realize that while reading his article they were thinking one

minded.

Suspending judgement while reading about social media, networking, and diseases is

hard. Having our faces in our phones and computers throughout the whole day forces us to have

judgement on everything we do. Especially when it is about a topic that involves everyday

situations like what Enrico writes about. With smartphones battling to be the best and always

being updated while increasing the cost of the phones is crazy. We are living in a technology
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based world. If the power goes out in the whole world, we will be set back so many years due to

the fact that we live through a cellular device. It is hard to admit something like this but it is true!

Creating a new insight for a device that is so impactful in our lives like Enrico did is

great. Allowing phones to create a gateway away from reality and be on social media while at the

same time allowing us to contact doctors or others. Enrico created a great scholarly article to

inform everyone about the potential a cellular device can have instead of just causing social

diseases or harm. Throughout the text providing factual evidence on why this is a plus, while

giving negatives, and showing that through all this there are social diseases from using this

device is crucial in his work. Overall this is a great and very unique scholarly article that gets the

point across. I am excited to see this be used in the future and cant wait to use it personally.
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Work Cited

Coiera, Enrico. SOCIAL NETWORKS, SOCIAL MEDIA, AND SOCIAL DISEASES. BMJ:

British Medical Journal, vol. 346, no. 7912, 2013, pp. 2224. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/23494882.

Duggan, Maeve, et al. Demographics of Key Social Networking Platforms. Pew Research

Center: Internet, Science & Tech, 9 Jan. 2015,

www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/demographics-of-key-social-networking-platforms-2/
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Looking back on the paper I originally had this completed before I was supposed to have

a conference but realized that I typed the whole paper thinking single-mindedly. It wasnt held

up to the requirements of project. So, in doing so I reread the article without judging anything

that was said. Once I finished I rewrote the paper to this one. Doing this brought out a different

side of writing in me. I really like this assignment and was really happy with the outcome of my

paper. I liked how we chose the article to work on rather than picking between two options.

This allows my peers and I to be more intrigued by the options and we can relate way better to

the topic. Also, this is a challenging assignment but at the same time it was very fun and worth

the amount of time I put into this work. I wouldnt really change anything about this assignment

due to the fact that we had multiple peer reviews as well as a 50% check and an 80% check on

our papers. Another thing I liked was having the conference and during the conference we were

able to ask questions about our paper and our grade in the class. I felt like all in all the set-up of

how this paper was reviewed and turned in was very effective in the writing process.