Introduction
This article was written by Steven Johnson. In this article, Johnson discusses the impacts and effects of the internet on the social and personal lives of individuals. Due to the technological advancements that have been experienced in the world of information technology since the late 1990s the rate at which people share their personal information has increased. This began with the project that was launched by Josh Harris in the late 1990s where he had the personal life of around 100 individuals recorded and broadcasted all over the world for anyone to see.
Although law enforcement officials of the U.S government cut the project short, Harris went further ahead to broadcast the personal life of himself and his girlfriend. This project too was cut short by the U.S government. This article thus explores the manner in which people utilize social media and networks and the kind of information that people should share, especially with strangers.
Purpose, diction, and tone of the article
The main purpose of this article was to advise people on what kind of information they should share with others through social networks and media and the extent to which this can go. In the article, Steven stated that people should learn how to draw lines on the extremes that they are willing to share information with others to protect themselves and their interests.
The writer has also presented diction in a smooth and articulate way. The manner in which he has chosen his words, vocabularies, and sentence structure clearly bring out the information that he wants to pass to his audience. In his article, he has used words like a crevasse, klieg, and bacchanalian to express the feelings that he had on the issue at hand. The choice of these words among many others has clearly brought out the idea and the emphasis that Steven had on the issue.
They clearly show the tone of emphasis that he had while writing the article. Steven keeps on emphasizing that we should gauge what kind of information we want to share and the people with whom we share that information with. That is why he said that he has discussed with his family about what information they can share and what they cannot. He went on further and said that when one talks to a stranger, it is different from giving their house keys. Altogether, he just wants people to be careful while using social media and networks since they may result in either positive or negative impacts.
Conclusion
The manner in which people socialize these days has changed. Social media and networks offer us the chance to share whatever information we want with whoever we want. At the same time, we can get in touch with people we know and strangers. Therefore, one has to be careful with the information that he/she wants to share to ensure their safety and at the same time maintain their privacy and morals and standards of the society.