No More Yourspace final draft

Ashley Sumii
Professor Huey
English 155
November 22, 2009
No More Yourpace
In Steven Johnson’s article “It’s All About Us,” he writes about how Web 2.0 is very beneficial and he celebrates it; however, a professional journalist named Brian Williams explains in his article “Enough About You,” that Web 2.0 is not very valuable for society. In Johnson’s article, he says, “Web 2.0 is made up of ordinary people: hobbyists, diarists, armchair pundits, people adding their voice to the Web’s great evolving conversation for the sheer love it” (“It’s All about Us”, 446). Steven Johnson likes the fact that regular people write their opinions and their views on society today on the internet. Brian Williams writes, “What is more, Williams worries, with the ability to tailor our media consumption today to only those sources that reflect our already held view, we may be missing out on alternative perspectives ‘that citizens in an informed democracy need to know” (“Enough about You”, 449). Brian Williams writes that people will not be informed of the important things going on in the world, because they will only read about the things they care about or are interested in. Also, Williams believes that the generation with Web 2.0 is transforming into an era that only focus on themselves. Although Web 2.0 does help people in the community share their views and opinions about various topics, it does not benefit our society because it just encourages us to focus more on only things we want to see, instead of opening our eyes to the more important news events that are occurring.
Brian Williams makes a good argument in the sense that Web 2.0 does not benefit our society and that people are obsessed with networking sites, such as Facebook or YouTube. Instead of focusing on the important news that is going on in our nation, people today are more focused on their own personal information on the internet and Web 2.0 is promoting a “me-centered” generation. According to Brian Williams, “It’s all about you. Me. And all the various forms of the First Person Singular. Americans have decided that the most important person in their lives is…them, and our culture is now built upon that idea. It’s the User-Generated Generation” (“Enough about You”, 449). Facebook for example is a huge website that allows users to focus on themselves and what is going on in their own personal lives. People blog about events going on in their lives, leading them to believe that other people will read what they write, and comment on it. Because people are so obsessed with websites like Facebook, they overlook the ongoing news happening in the world today.
A news story that is being overlooked by society today is the promotion of a foundation that is giving 335 million dollars to support the effective teaching going on in certain schools, known as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This foundation awards teachers that show tremendous abilities in the way they teach and provide their students with the education they deserve. An article written about this organization says, “We are convinced that in order to dramatically improve education in America, we must first ensure that every student has an effective teacher in every subject, every school year,” (Melinda French Gates, “Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation”). Many people believe that this foundation is well-deserving for the teachers, because it is a critical component of an education strategy that will ensure quality teaching and student achievement. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is going to have such a big impact on our society because it deals with the education of the next generation and how sufficient the teaching methods should be. This is an important news story, especially in the academic society; however, many people are not even aware that this foundation exists. The harsh reality is the fact that people would rather be on Myspace or Facebook and blog about themselves, instead of looking at the important news stories that are changing our society and trying to make it a better place.
Brian Williams’ article “Enough about You” talks about how Web 2.0 is not benefiting society; that it is actually hindering us because we are oblivious to what is going on in the world. This is true on many levels, one being the fact that people usually go on the internet to socially network and write about what is going on in their lives, instead of looking at the breaking news that is going on in the world. Brian Williams writes in “Enough about You” that, “The danger might be that we miss the next great book or the next great idea, or that we fail to meet the next great challenge…because we are too busy celebrating ourselves and listening to the same tune we already know by heart” (Williams, “Enough about You”). This quote establishes the fact that people today are much too focused on themselves and use the internet for their own personal gain.
It is true that people go on the internet to look up things that they want to see for themselves, and in the end they could be missing out on important breaking news because of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 could be a good thing because it gives us an unlimited amount of information, or it could hinder us from essentially seeing significant things going on in the world today. Williams writes in his article, “The larger dynamic at work is the celebration of self. The implied message is that if it has to do with you, or your life, it’s important enough to tell someone” (“Enough about You”). In the end, although Web 2.0 has some qualities that could help society today, it does not change the fact that people only look at the websites they want to look at and miss out on the things that are actually going on in the world today.
Brian Williams writes in his article that people today have become more self-centered, especially in the Web 2.0 world. Websites such as YouTube clearly show how “me-centered” society is and that Web 2.0 is increasing this aspect tremendously. In modern society, we encourage me centered websites and take pride in the loss of intelligence that happens as a result. It is not difficult to find a person on YouTube focusing on themselves and trying to make a living by being a “YouTube star,” and the funniest part is that many of us watch them for entertainment even though there could be many other productive activities we could do.
In an article written about YouTube, it says, “YouTube has quickly become the internet's go-to platform for music videos and all manner of corporate-produced and homemade video clips, many of them heartwarming, hilarious or simply bizarre,” (SOSTEK Anya, “Addicted to its web of content”). This website is a prime example of how society today is transforming into a world where we only focus on ourselves, especially through the use of Web 2.0. A specific video on YouTube that depicts a person taping themselves and putting it on the web is called “Life as a Guido.” In the video, a man shows his audience what his daily routine is like from when he gets up in the morning, to when he goes to bed at night. By just reading about what this video is regarding, you would think that it would be unpopular; however, “Life as a Guido” has gotten over 500,000 views. This video shows just how self-centered Web 2.0 has become and that people only go on the internet for pure enjoyment and do not focus on the bigger picture at hand.
Although many people agree with how Web 2.0 is changing society for the worse, there are some critics that believe Web 2.0 is actually benefiting people today. For example, Steven Johnson is one person that believes that Web 2.0 is doing more good than harm because it allows ordinary people like us to have a voice in society and put our positions out there for the world to see. He writes in an article, “It’s All about Us,” that, “the democratic opportunities of the Internet offer a chance for ordinary people to converse about the local issues in their lives that the professionals largely ignore,” (Johnson, 446). A prime example that supports the beliefs of Steven Johnson is a singer named AJ Rafael. The internet helped him get is name out in the public eye because he would post videos of himself singing and playing the guitar on YouTube. After a while, people started to watch AJ Rafael frequently and he started using his newly-gained popularity to create benefit concerts to raise money for the Philippines and the misfortunes going on in Manila. Even though AJ Rafael used his social networks to raise awareness for the Philippines, there are still many people today that are not as kind-hearted as him and use the internet for their own personal gain or satisfaction. Web 2.0 is filled with people that blog everyday about random things that do not benefit our society in any way, and the people putting this nonsense on the internet are the ones that do not focus on the important issues going on in the world.
“Enough about You” is an article that really allows you to think about what Web 2.0 is doing to our society and Brian Williams makes it clear that it is transforming us into a generation that only thinks and focuses on ourselves and does not pay attention to the rest of the world. Steven Johnson disagrees with Williams completely with his article “It’s All about Us” and feels that Web 2.0 is allowing the ordinary people to have a say in what society should look at on the internet and make people more aware of local issues occurring in the communities. Even though both articles give valid reasons and support, Brian Williams’ beliefs are true in the sense that society is definitely changing and it has a lot to do with Web 2.0 and the fact that the internet creates websites that basically guide people to focus on the enjoyable aspects, instead of the breaking news going on in the world.
By looking at how the internet has changed dramatically over a couple of years, Web 2.0 will definitely become more democratic and have more nonsense material than ever before. Because there are so many people obsessed with Facebook and YouTube, there will obviously be more people that will be willing to create websites like these for enjoyment and social networking purposes. The internet will not be as accurate as it was previously because many people will create websites that have no relevance to the important news going on in our nation. Hopefully, if people more people will read Brian Williams’ article, they will realize that Web 2.0 is changing our society for the worst and creating a new generation that only focuses on themselves.


Annotated Bibliography
Anya, SOSTEK. "Addicted to its web of content." LexisNexis Academic. Web.
The article, “Addicted to its web of content,” talks about the fact that YouTube is such a popular website and how fast its popularity has grown in the last four years. YouTube is a website where you can find basically any video you would want to watch on someone, whether it is cute animals to hip hop music videos. This article helped me have support in my essay in a form of a scholarly journal. It gave me a quote that reinforced the fact that YouTube has transformed our society into a generation that only cares about entertainment and not the important issues at hand.
Gates, Bill, and Melinda Gates. "Foundation Commits $335 Million to Promote Effective
Teaching and Raise Student Achievement." Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Web.
This website displayed a summary of what the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is all about and how it is going to help the next generation of children. The organization is giving a huge amount of money to schools that will promote effective teaching and raise student achievement. This foundation really helped me give a good supporting evidence for my essay and allowed the readers to see that there are things being done to our nation that people are not even aware of. Something as big as the education of children is something that people need to pay more attention to, instead of focusing on networking sites, like Facebook.


Johnson, Steven. “It’s All about Us.” Signs of Life in the USA (2009): 446-48. Print.
The article “It’s All about Us,” written by Steven Johnson, describes the argument that Web 2.0 really does benefit our society. It allows the community to have a voice and share their issues with the world through the internet. This article really helped me have a good counter-argument because I was able to find an opposing critic and use their supporting evidence to further my own supporting evidence. I was able to use quotes from Johnson’s article to explain where he was coming from on this specific topic.
Williams, Brian. "Enough about You." Signs of Life in the USA (2009): 449-51. Print.
In the article “Signs of Life in the USA”, Brian Williams explains his argument that Web 2.0 does not help society in any way. He believes that Web 2.0 is creating a “me-generation” and that people are not focusing on the important news going on in the world. I definitely used Williams’ article numerous times to support my evidence. I agreed with his argument, so it was very helpful to use quotes from his article.