Essay Sample on Landon's Journey from Isolation to Friendship: A Tinder Story

Introduction

A boy named Landon has had a phone since he was a student in junior high. He often wanted to go out with friends and play sports. Growing up, he had many friends from class, but he never went out with them outside of school. Even on his 16th birthday, no one showed up, which made him even more somber. Following into his college years, Landon decided to get Tinder to make friends and possibly, get a girlfriend. With no luck, Landon was hesitant to leave his room to do anything. The only time he would leave the house where to attend class. As he watched his peers quickly form friendships, he became more and more depressed. He started to wonder if the technology on his phone was the reason he was so alone all this time or if it was a good reason to form friendships. Shortly after that thought, he realized he could never form the types of friendships he craved online. So, he deleted his tinder, along with his other social media accounts. He became more reluctant to go to class or to do anything. Landon mostly stayed at home, either watching tv or eating his favorite snacks.

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Several millions of people own a cellphone around the world. For the younger generation, parents gift their children Lady Bugs which are phones designated only for emergency calls or to contact the parents in case of emergencies. As kids get older to turn into teenagers, parents will sometimes give their child an iPhone or Android to contact their friends. What comes with the trust of parents is an opportunity to break that trust. When teenagers hit puberty for the first time, they get all sorts of emotions that are "uncontrollable." This is especially true when kids start sixth grade. This happens quite a bit, young teens finding themselves sharing explicit photos. Sometimes these photos go to the internet, or someone shares it with their friends. If an adult were to find out, the kid's phone would get taken away or worse, that kid will become a sex offender. At the age of 14, no one wants that sort of thing to happen, so society quietly ignores this issue growing among our young teens in junior high.

On top of that, sometimes kids can be blackmailed and shamed for this. It wears down the self-esteem and ability to trust someone in the future. Many of the things that happen in a young teen's life go unreported. Having that sort of trauma and baggage can hinder the ability to form relationships in the future. This makes the younger teens become closed off to the rest of the world, with the inability to trust and make meaningful bonds.

Over half of the world's population have dating apps on their cell phones. However, there is a social stigma that comes with having apps like Bumble, Tinder, Grindr, and Clover. With every app that comes onto the market, there is a universal slogan: find that special someone here. Although that is easier said than done, this saying and others like it is what brings people to download and use these apps. For example, the rate of marriages made from meeting on tinder is 30%, according to statistics (Holland, 333). That being said, most people are not looking for a relationship but rather to get out of one. (cite) In the eyes of the public, getting matches on apps like this, one should be hidden. There is a social stigma where getting matches in public or around family members can be embarrassing, so, most people hide their phones when this happens. (cite) That being said, going on several dates at a time in a desperate attempt to find "the one" can be overwhelming and exhausting, especially when people expect sexual encounters on said apps. With outlets like these, teenagers are more likely to feel more sexual when they are "anonymous" online. In turn, this can cause child pornography and becoming sexual offenders at young ages. This makes it harder for teens to have a steady career, hi solid relationships in the future, which leads to people wanting to be left alone.

Social media is nothing to shy away from, either. Growing up, teenagers feel the need to have more followers online. The fewer followers someone has, the less popular they are, which makes teens have less self-esteem and less self-worth. While George might have more followers than Sue, he may not have many friends in the outside world. However, social media like Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook can be a great outlet to connect with friends through direct messages. Direct messages, comments, and subtweets can also be used for cyber-bullying. The famous saying "@ me next time" is used when twitter users subtweet or talk about someone without mentioning their name on twitter. Depending on the tweet, it can either bring someone down or lift them. Many times, subtweets lead to twitter fights where on social media, people argue about whatever the topic is. Society is so set on the idea of "picking a side" that people are reluctant to think about what the other person is feeling or where that person is coming from. While It is easy to form friendships online, it is much more difficult to form the same relationships with people in real life. When people rely on social media to connect, it makes them feel more alone in their personal life.

Every person who owns a cell phone knows that solicitations on email and calls are unavoidable. Calls from unknown numbers, especially when in the military, are hard to distinguish from who is real and who is a telemarketer. Knowing this, unknown callers could be someone who had just gotten a phone number or someone trying to provide information about a family member's condition in the hospital. Knowing this makes it a lot harder to avoid phone calls. Outside of the military, unknown numbers can be from possible employers or colleges. The amount of unknown that goes with phone calls like these makes it harder to receive valuable information for the time being. Whether it be a family member admitting into the hospital or what time someone has to get to work, the majority of people will not answer unknown caller IDs. The thought process that goes with only having solicitor calls is no one else wants to connect or be a friends m. Which can bring people to isolate themselves from having meaningful connections with people? Always being kept in the dark leads to depression. It makes people less motivated to get out of bed in the morning or to fall asleep at night.

From big-name brands like Apple to the ladybug, phones have been a massive part of today's society. They have been used for emergencies, streaming videos, and keeping up to date with the latest Instagram posts. While phones can be useful in several ways, they can also bring people down to feel more alone and depressed. Dating apps like rtinder can only get someone so far. When getting calls or emails by someone unknown, it is hard to determine whether or not something is real. Cyberbullying is an issue that still has not been resolved, and kids are being pressured into doing the wrong things that can be detrimental towards their future as respectable adults in society. While cell phones have both beautiful things about them and terrible things about them, society will continue to ignore the issues at hand until it becomes too big of an issue to ignore. In the end, cellphones can both bring people together or make people feel alone. It only depends on how they are used.

Despite phones, making it easier for people to communicate and connect it has also altered the perceptions of people regarding those they interact with. For example, phones have contributed to the objectification of women in today's online dating circles - the objectification of individuals. However, before delving into how smartphones promote the objectification of people, it is essential to explore objectification and that it entails. As per Kellie et al., the survey of someone else as an instrument to be utilized for sexual objectives is known as objectification.

Ongoing proof demonstrates that the educated programmed reaction to externalize ladies has gotten socially instilled to such an incredible degree that deciding not to generalize ladies drains self-administrative assets and diminishes execution in intellectual assignments. On the side of this idea, one Australian examination on an example of 81 ladies found that more than a multi-week, every lady detailed being focused for objectification between 3 to multiple times overall and seeing sexual externalization of other ladies 9 to multiple times by and large.

Generalization turns out to be particularly destructive if ladies disguise these decisions and self-typify, or view themselves as first as bodies over other individual attributes. The situation can prompt adverse outcomes, including elevated body-disgrace and more noteworthy reluctance to talk in social connections. For the most part, numerous specialists contend that ladies are, for the most part, externalized when contrasted with men. In this unique circumstance, Generalized Women are seen as not precisely completely human, saw to have, to a lesser degree a brain for considerations or choices, and saw as less meriting proper treatment by others.

Conclusion

Conclusively, this forswearing of mental limit and functional status has been found to have negative repercussions for typified ladies, including expanding men's eagerness to submit explicitly vigorous activities towards them and diminishing apparent enduring in instances of rape. Moreover, a few ladies are typified more than others: Women who show up sexualized explicitly, are generalized more than non-sexualized ladies. Therefore the assertion that phones bring people together is correct. The one negative aspect of how it does is the fact that it can change the perception of the individuality and personalities of the people who interact through phones.

Works Cited

Greenburg, Barbara. "What's Wrong With Social Media." Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 20 June 2013, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-teen-doctor/201306/whats-wrong-social-media.

Holland, Elise, et al. "Sexual objectification in women's daily lives: A smartphone ecological momentary assessment study." British Journal of Social Psychology 56.2 (2017): 314-333.

Kellie, Dax J., Khandis R. Blake, and Robert C. Brooks. "What drives female objectification? An investigation of appearance-based interpersonal perceptions and the objectification of women." PloS one 14.8 (2019).

Zarate, Sophia. "The Social Stigma Attached to Dating Apps." The Odyssey Online, The Odyssey Online, 14 Oct. 2019, www.theodysseyonline.com/the-social-stigma-attached-to-dating-apps.