English

Essay Prompt:
WHAT IS THE MOST SIGNIFICANT IMPACT OF THE “OBSERVER EFFECT” ON THE TYPICAL SOCIAL-MEDIA USER’S PSYCHE?

Reference Source:
1. Eggers, Dave. The Circle. New York: Vintage. 2014
2. Others

Things you don’t need to be reminded of: answer the question directly and completely, provide clear reasoning, and provide specific evidence to support your claims. Do not speak in the first-person or reference your own personal experience. Make it universal or leave it out. Do think critically. Tell your audience what we don’t know, what is only found in your precious brain: your thesis and why it is so.

You’ll obviously want to become familiar with the “observer effect” in order to write this essay. Take a quick Google but basically it is this: observation changes things, anything observed is changed by the act of that observation. In your papers, you will absolutely not need to summarize this theory. With an understanding of the observer effect we can see that the prompt is somewhat asking how social-media users are changed by this use. However, it is a narrower question than that. For example, social-media users are attached to their devices and need to find charging stations and have tendonitis, or whatever, these issues are not related to the observer effect, per se. We’re looking for more than the relationship between technology and humans, we’re looking at the specific relationship between constant, let’s say, observation and the human psyche.
For our purposes, the typical social media user will be a non-celebrity. We are thus defining “celebrity” as any person with a following related to a professional status: actor, musician, author, fitness guru, gurus of all sorts, politicians, comedians, varsity football player, porn star. If you think someone might be a celebrity, you are probably right, and that person won’t be a useful example of a “typical” social media user. That said, the idea of celebrity, the desire for celebrity, may play strongly into your thesis, if that is ringing any critical bells for you.
Do reference the Eggers’ text in this paper. A good rule of thumb is to include one bit of textual support per paragraph, perhaps you will use Eggers throughout the paper and perhaps you will find outside sources. Outside sources, however, are not required.
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PAPER REQUIREMENTS AT A GLANCE
Double-space the document and use one inch margins all around as well as a reasonably sized and designed font in black only. Do not justify margins. (MLA formatting guidelines.)
Include original title.
Introduce your topic clearly in the opening paragraph and offer a clear, argumentative thesis at the end of your opening paragraph.
Be sure to include at least one selection from the reading in your discussion (the rule of thumb is one selection per paragraph) and to formally introduce the text(s) and integrate all quotes.
Include proper MLA citations when necessary and a Works Cited page as the last page of your paper.
The final submission should be approximately 1,000 words.

Additional info –
What is the impact of the “observer effect” on the typical social media user? Or, on the typical social media user’s lifestyle? Let’s focus on changes within the individual, to help keep the conversation manageable. Science says there must be a change in the individual (or, at least, in the behavior if we’re splitting hairs)… unless, I suppose, a person has no circle of friends and therefore no audience (but that is a Can o’ Worms since the question then becomes: if one imagines they have an audience but does not, does the observer effect still occur? Let’s please let those worms sit in their can on the shelf! Another tricky part here is that the one doing the observing is the one being observed but let’s try to put that aside before we have to lie down from the spins).
If you are wondering what the observer effect is, may I introduce, Google. A quick search for “observer effect” will be sufficient. The observer effect is a trusted scientific principle. I’m pleased to say that a search for “observer effect” and “social media” did not overwhelm me with sources discussing exactly this though I’m sure we did not invent it. I did find this tidy little article from an odd venue. I’m including it here for its simple overview related to this working prompt (and because it begins with an extensive quote of Thich Nhat Hanh* and I’m down for Hanh whenever).

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