Document Type
Honors Project - Open Access
Abstract
Social media is now a prevailing tool for people and we often interact with other people on social media. Human interaction takes place both in face-to-face settings and on social media and becoming so-called influencers is a dream among teenagers. However, using social media necessarily entails exposure to the other people and social media companies. Then, is using social media existentially beneficial? I explore this question by employing arguments from Erving Goffman, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Guy Debord to explicate the existential issues which social media entails. From Sartre and Debord’s perspectives, we are inevitably objectified by the gaze when using social media but we might use social media as a means to achieve our goals. Then, I argue that Social media would be a valuable tool for us to achieve our own goals but we are inevitably objectified and easily feel existential anxiety in our everyday life.
Recommended Citation
Yokoi, Yuki, "The Gaze and the Other on Social Media: Reexamining Existence as Human Beings in the Digital Age" (2023). Philosophy Honors Projects. 14.
https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/phil_honors/14
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