With over 500 million users, the decisions that Facebook makes about its privacy settings have the potential to influence many people. While its changes in this domain have often prompted privacy advocates and news media to critique the company, Facebook has continued to attract more users to its service. This raises a question about whether or not Facebook’s change in privacy approaches matter and, if so, to whom. Josh Rose sees Facebook as an opportunity to reach out to friends and family members they may not see on a regular basis. William Deresiewicz makes compelling suggestions in his article “Faux Friendships”; his ideas and modernized definitions on the truth behind the word “friend” makes a good arugument. Though there are differences and similarities of the arguments of Josh Rose and William Deresiewicz on the issue of Facebook’s connectivity, neither author is fully persuasive; there is a middle ground between the two that better explains the Facebook’s role in modern human connectivity.
Josh Rose presents a fleeting, generalized argument, lacking raw facts. While the article is an op-ed, which inherently demands the author’s opinion, Josh Rose uses his opinion as the main backing. He says “social media is not cold, just complex,” (57) and due to the complexity he simply drops the topic. This is the author’s one attempt at addressing the opposition. To him the opposition believes social media is cold, and his response is that social media is complex. He neither properly establishes the opposition nor properly refutes the opposition. His vague generalizations are rampant; Rose calls the issue “paradoxical and confusing,” using that as a stepping stone to a rant on human nature and human progress, seemingly unrelated to his initial argument. Moreover, the pages are dripping with emotional appeal. Mentioning his son and how any tiny bit of