Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

Thompson's main argument is that social media has helped people connect in a multitude of ways. He is also argues that these ways of connection may be more helpful and convenient than they ever have been. Zuckerberg introduced the News Feed to make keeping up with your Facebook friends easier. Everyone's post was in one place and kept the user from having to go to each individual page to keep up with their friends most recent social post. This doesn't say much about our ability to find information, it just makes it a lot easier than it used to be. In my opinion, the News Feed is a good thing  in terms of literacy. It allows one to keep up with more people at the same time and allows them to actually read more than they might have if the News Feed never existed. Ambient awareness is described as being able to feel personally close to or connected to someone purely through their social media account. I sometimes experience ambient awareness. Facebook's paradox is Twitter. I believe there is a downfall and benefit of ambient awareness. The benefit, not having to talk about sore subjects with your friends because they put all of the story online. The downfall, you lose that personal face to face contact with the people you say you care about. The skimmable updates are basically what we have been talking about the entire time in class. They are made to feed our desire for short, yet informational posts.The ties to our online friends hurt us. This article defines literacy as being able to stay connected with people you barely know and still be more than informed about their life.