Essay on “Liking is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts”
We’re spending more and more time online and less time out in the real world. But is modern technology really doing us harm? And are we missing out on a lot of important stuff when we hide behind our screens and use a mouse as our mouthpiece? These are some of the important question that arise from reading Jonathan Franzen’s essay, “Liking is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts” from 2011. The 51-year-old author puts our daily internet routines into perspective and forces us to think critically about what we are doing online. But he beats around the bush for a while before he starts presenting his actual message. He thus starts out sharing a personal experience of getting a new smartphone and uses this as a starting point for voicing his concerns. Jonathan Franzen is aware of the danger of scaring off those young readers who might be fed up with older people complaining about the youth of today, “Very probably, you’re sick to death of hearing social media disrespected by cranky 51-year-olds” (ll. 140-142). He therefore catches this young audience’s attention by comparing his relationship to his outdated smartphone to a relationship of romantic nature. He uses familiar expressions like “trust issues”, “accountability issues” and having “outgrown the relationship”. In this way, he seeks to keep in eye level with potential young readers who will almost certainly find the comparison amusing. He then chooses to contrast the simple world of technology with the natural world. He talks of love as the enemy of technoconsumerism (l.67) and explains how modern media, in his opinion, commodifies love in a nauseating way through commercials on TV, for example. Jonathan Franzen keeps the youngsters interested by talking of familiar phenomena like “liking” and “friending” something and someone on face book: “[L]iking, in general, is commercial culture’s substitute for loving” (ll. 83-85). He argues that our actions in the virtual world are merely narcissistic and selfcentered in that we only present to the world the filtered and flattering sides of ourselves. And consumer technology products help us to so. This is why Franzen calls them “enablers of narcissism” (l. 122). The main message that Jonthan Franzen wants to get across with his essay is that we should spend more time in the real world. On the internet most things are risk-free. He wants to point out that liking something is far from the same as loving something or someone. When you truly put yourself out there in the real world and start loving someone, then you’re running a great risk of being hurt badly. But if you refrain from doing so, then you are not really living at all. The essay should thus be seen as a shout-out to a young generation and as a reminder that everything great cannot be found online.

Studienet.dk-278758-8685736

selma, selmanielsen2@hotmail.com
Dette dokument er en personlig udgave hentet fra Studienet.dk, og det er ikke tilladt at dele dokumentet med andre.

Jonathan Franzen draws attention to interesting things in his essay. The fact that Facebook has influenced the English language so that “like” is now an action verb rather than a state of mind verb, for example. That’s interesting! But does it say anything about the young generation’s ability to tell the difference between liking and loving? Not really. I think it’s naive to believe that a whole generation of young people will simply withdraw from the real world, stop loving and live through technological devices exclusively. Love is such a natural part of human existence, and no amount of technology will be able to change that. On the other hand, the observation that our behavior on social media is narcissistic more than anything else is spot on! We might tell ourselves that we’re just sharing with the world essential information and interesting photos, but really we’re trying to portray a certain picture of ourselves to the world. Such behavior can take up a lot of our time, and what do we gain from it? Besides the momentary thrill to find our online profile perfectly flattering, we’re not gaining anything of value. There might therefore be a valuable lesson to learn from Franzen’s essay: Spend your time wisely and stop obsessing over what you look like to the outside world. However, our concern with other people’s opinion of us dates back to Adam and Eve, and thinking we can change that might be slightly utopian. In the essay, “Liking is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts”, Jonathan Franzen tries in a humorous way to give the young generation a wake-up call. While voicing the concern that we’ll forget how to love and settle for liking, Franzen is nevertheless worried without reason. Young people might be spending ridiculous amounts of time online rather than out in the real world, but they will never lose the ability to love. Nor will they stop being able to distinguish between what is real and what is not. However, Franzen makes some interesting comparisons and looks at the problem from a new and fresh angle. The essay thus gave me food for thought and I’m sure many other youngsters will feel the same way.