Another passage that stood out to me was The Empathy Diaries on page 344 paragraph 3. This passage intrigued me because it touches on the effects that social media has on mental health. I think that social media can make it very hard for some people to not conform to societal norms or alter themselves to fit the mold. Posts have become a vessel for displaying how happy and great your life is, yet a lot of it is just for show. It paints an unrealistic version of people’s lives that others feel the need to one-up. Seeing people hanging out with friends, having the time of their lives, and making plans excluding you can be very detrimental to someone’s mental health. It can be hard when you are struggling to not feel like there is something wrong with you, when you see others always laughing and smiling. The reality is that nobody’s life is perfect or happy as it might seem and everyone is going through something whether you can see it or not.

On page 350 and 351 of Sherry Turkle’s book of passages, the one that stood out to me was Stepping Up, Not Stepping Back. This particular passage was interesting to me because it is about a controversial topic. I would say that despite hearing Turkle’s stance on the topic, I still do not have a concrete opinion myself. This is something that is relevant in people my age’s lives. When I was in high school they were not as harsh with rules regarding our technology. Some teachers would be more strict than others but for the most part, teachers would just keep telling kids to get off their phones rather than making them leave it at the front of the room. Since I have left my high school they have created new rules regarding technology. They prohibited personal devices during all class periods, study halls, advisory blocks and WIN (What I Need) blocks. I could understand counting phones, ipads and tablets, headphones and cameras however I think that going as far as smart watches is a bit excessive. There are a couple reasons why I believe that smart watches are too much, one reason being that they are so small and are not easily usable to play games on or text from. The other reason is that some are used to measure and monitor people’s health conditions and keep a log of how they are doing throughout the day.