The End of Solitude

Academic Summary-

Most people are afraid of being in solitude, even just for a few minutes. Technologies of communications bring as closer and closer together, while technologies of transportation allows us be further and further about from each other. We are always connected with are friends. But who really is a friend when have 532 friends on Facebook? Romanticism and other religious views were said to encompass solitude. It allowed one's self to focus solely on them and only them. The telephone, television, cell phone and Facebook allow people to never be bored. You simply just turn it on. You can never be truly alone.

Key Words: Loneliness, boredom, solitude, connectivity, friendship, willingness, technology.

Descriptive Outline-

Paragraph 1

Does: Suggests what the contemporary self wants.

Says: As the way people use the internet changes, what they want also beings to change. People want to be known, to be recognized, to be connected, and to be visible.

Paragraph 2

Does: Argues that we as individuals are taking away our ability to be alone.

Says: We are never alone. We are constantly living in relation to others and our solitude is disappearing. Our privacy and concentration is taken away by our use of technology.

Paragraph 3

Does: Implies that no one wants to be alone.

Says: What place does solitude have in students lives? None. One student says that being alone is so unsettling that she has to sit with a friend even the she has to write a paper.

Paragraph 4

Does: Contradicts the world now with how it use to be.

Says: Th values of society traditionally included solitude, but now people are "social animals." Being alone is necessary for a religious experience. Religious solitude is important, but does it occur in the hustle and bustle of the everyday norm?

Paragraph 5

Does: Analyzes how solitude use to be.

Says: Solitude was made accessible to everyone by the Reformation and separated it from religious connection. Calvinism created the modern person by focusing the soul inward so they could encounter God.

Paragraph 6

Does: Expresses how solitude it different among different religions and groups of people.

Says: Solitude achieved its greatest cultural importance through Romanticism. In Protestant solitude is still just figurative. People now had to go to nature so they could encounter it. There are many different kinds of solitude and they are all perceived different.

Paragraph 7

Does: Presents solitude in the modernism dialect.

Says: Solitude is much harsher and isolating in Modernism. It says that the soul can not chose to be alone. The world was now perceived as an assault on the self.

Paragraph 8

Does: Offers a future explanation of how the Romantic ideal of solitude developed.

Says: Hell is said to be other people and the soul is forced back into itself. Only important relationship are with ones self.

Paragraph 9

Does: Contradicts how solitude use to be and ho it is now.

Says: We no longer live in a modernist city. We are no longer afraid of being included but more afraid for not being included. Urbanization became suburbanization and we become afraid of loneliness. Transportation made it possible to live further and further apart but the technologies of communication made it possible to bring ourselves closer together without actually being close. throughout the 70's and 80's our solitude grew. Families became smaller or split apart, and women went to work. Every houses main electronic was the television. Children no longer went ran around the neighborhood and played because crime rates soared.

Paragraph 10

Does: Generalizes that the internet saved us but then became to much of a good thing.

Says: The internet was a unmeasurable blessing. Now isolated people can communicated with anyone in the world. You can now stay in touch with anyone with out being close. A decade ago the world was a different place, there was no texting or Facebook. We can always be connected now. The goal of the internet now a days is to become known. Being so visible allows us to have high esteem but it is also impossible to be alone.

Paragraph 11

Does: Explains how we are losing the Romantic dialectic.

Says: What does friendship actually mean? How can we have so many friends on Facebook? Students reported they have not much time for intimacy and no time at all for solitude.

Paragraph 12

Does: Suggests our use of technology is a constant effort to get rid of solitude.

Says: Young people do not desire to have solitude, or even know what it is. Technology allows us to never have to be alone. Many people do not want to be alone and do not understand why it is a good thing sometimes.

Paragraph 13

Does: Introduces the ideas of boredom and loneliness.

Says: Both words were cited in the 19th century, so they are fairly new words. Boredom is thought to be brought about be the television. The television was designed to eliminate the feeling for boredom. Boredom is not bad because you have nothing to do but because it is thought to be a negative experience. People are being terrified of being bored.

Paragraph 14

Does: States that we are trained to be bored.

Says: The television trains us to be bored. If we are bored we turn on the tv. If we are doing nothing and are not watching tv or doing something else we cannot function. Boredom creates a market for stimulation. Having nothing to do does not have to be a bad thing.

Paragraph 15

Does: Illustrates what technology is going to us.

Says: We have an inability to be by ourselves. You can be with your friends all the time now. You can constantly be talking to your friends or know where they are at.

Paragraph 16

Does: Evaluates what is lost when we do not have solitude.

Says: Placed at the center of spiritual life is the idea of introspection. Introspection is the the examination of ones self. We are unable to complete introspection if we are never alone.

Paragraph 17

Does: Illustrates why we no longer believe in the solitary mind.

Says: Our brains pick up social context differently. Our decision making is influenced by social context. Our behavior is effected by social context. Everything we do is social.

Paragraph 18

Does: Presents how we communicate with the world.

Says: We use various social networking websites to stay connected and communicate with others. We communicate who we are to the world on these sites. Most people put everything on the web from everyone else to see.

Paragraph 19

Does: Gives support to how solitude helps us.

Says: Solitude allows us to secure our integrity as well as explore it. we are all different in our own way.

Paragraph 20

Does: Implies how solitude is good.

Says: The devil is not alone and he is never alone. But God is alone. Schools do everything they can to keep kids from being alone. Most good ideas come from being in solitude.

Paragraph 21

Does: Supports that solitude is not for everyone.

Says: Being alone is not easy. Not everyone can be alone either. Thoreau said, "that men are still a little afraid of the dark." The end of the paragraph questions what will happen if solitude disappears all together.

Paragraph 22

Does: Asks if we are really being friendly with each other?

Says: Not very many people like solitude but, when we are around people we have weak smiles, being interested in other people to be polite and making fake invitations. We don't like being alone but when are together we act like we would rather e alone. Friendship may be slipping away from us. People who wish to find solitude must not be afraid to stand alone.

Rhetorical Precis

William Deresiewicz, Non-Fiction review article on solitude, The End of Solitude, (Jan. 2009, argues that solitude is a good thing but development of technology is taking it away. The author notes first that we as people do not like being alone and its not what we want, then talks about other Religious views and ideas that like the idea of solitude, and final explains how we are always connect and are never alone anymore. The authors purpose is to show how we need solitude in our live and how we are taking it away from ourselves. The author is trying to show the importance that solitude plays in our lives before it disappears forever. The audience is mostly for this generation of young people who are even more connected than ever.