Ian Gilbert M. Villanueva English 10
2013-70828 Dec. 10, 2013 The thesis statement in the article “Looking for Intimacy in the Age of Facebook” by Andrew Reiner is “... the parts of their lives that truly matter to many of them during college are undermined by widespread , constricting social anxiety that comes, paradoxically, from two of their greatest pleasures: texting and social media.” I think that this thesis statement is a good one because I think it passes our criteria for being a good thesis statement. First, it predicts. This statement lets the reader anticipate what the article would contain. Technology used for communication like cellphone, smartphones and social web sites would come in mind. Social issues would also come in. It does not say it all. It does not give you everything at the start. It lets you think first before giving out all the details. Second, it controls. It has a scope and limitations. A good thesis statement does not let the essay get too general nor too specific. In the article, one can see that it limits its characters to college students only. The statement also focuses on texting and social media. It also tells us that the author will only cover its effects to the teenagers. Third, it obligates. This article was easy to understand because the author effectively followed the path of his thesis statement. It did not become vague. The author really focused on how his students used social media and what the effects were to his students. So what did he point out really? He pointed out that at the present, technology have been really affecting people’s lives. To point this out, he used some of the statistics he found on how long people use the cellphone and Facebook everyday. He also researched on the bad effects of this and he wanted to try to see if this was true to his students. So he experimented on his students and he got a mix of good and bad reactions. Some were very shy. Some confessed. Some really liked what they did and a lot more. As I see it, the author’s research was a bit true. It was confirmed by his experiment on his students. We can infer that the students’ social abilities decreased. That is why the author made a final experiment to his students. He let them go in the cafeteria or some kind of room but leaving their gadgets behind. Some just went out and some realized that communicating and socializing with others without the use of these gadgets were good. Because of this experiments, we can really say that the social abilities of the students there are not really that good.