When drawing a conclusion on whether or not something  makes you lonely, you must define what it means to be lonely and what it means to be alone. Being lonely is a mental state of being that is sadness due to being alone, while being alone is a physical state of being by oneself. Lonely and alone don’t have to go hand in hand. The two states of beings have the ability to be mutually exclusive. After reading these two articles and rifling through their stories and narratives, I find that both articles are actually saying the same thing in a different fashion.

The main message of the two is not that Facebook is either making us lonely or making us not lonely, no not at all. The message that they both seem to be conveying is that Facebook adds to the quantity of our friendships, and subtracts from the quality of our friendships. You see, we are not alone, and we are not lonely, but we are simply temporarily filling the human need to be social. With the need of instant gratification in this day and age, there is no more long term creations of friendship. Most socializing happens in an online forum he simply aims to instantly numb the need for human companionship. In this and knowing that not everyone should be trusted on the internet, people don’t want to confide and build real relationships that take time. What causes the loneliness is the realization that our friends are only acquaintances and that we haven’t taken the time to craft a friendship. The alone portion comes from this realization as well.

I found this to be an interesting concept that both articles were tickling the same nerve, but claiming to be alternative views. I believe that we are making ourselves alone by trying to fend off loneliness.