The essay ''Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts'' is an essay written by Jonathan Franzen. He is an American novelist and essayist. It is an essay based on a commencement speech, which he delivered at Kenyon College in Ohio, USA.
Jonathan Franzen starts his essay off by talking about his relationship with his smartphone. He is very impressed how far the technology had advanced in three years when he got his new smartphone. Franzen comments on our lives, how we live our lives and how we personify objects to make them likeable. He tells us about his new smartphone, which brings up the whole ''debate'' about how we personify, treat and swear to items we have with us every day. The goal with technology is ''to replace a natural world that is indifferent to our wishes - a world of hurricanes and hardships and breakable hearts, a world of resistance - with a world so responsive to our wished as to be effectively, a mere extension of the self'' (p.9 l.55-61). And then he starts talking about how technology is only troubled by real love, and it has no choice but to trouble love in return.
Jonathan Franzen's way of engaging the audience is very creative and interesting. He admit that he is a 51 year old man who has become tired of the constant use of technology, but he does admit that he has become quite addicted himself with his smartphone (Blackberry), he speaks about the phone like if it was his girlfriend ''Over the years bloom had faded from our relationship (...) I'd developed trust issues and some doubts about my Pearl's very sanity'' (s.8 l.15-20), and that makes it relevant for younger people. This speech is about love, the way that Franzen goes into this is through technology. Franzen's message to the readers is; The world of liking is a ''lie''. We are all way too busy to thinking what other people are thinking about us, we fear that. Facebook is a part of everyone's life today, especially the younger part. All the hating comes from love, the technology is not the problem, it is the human reaction which really are the problem. For example if you post or update a picture or status, and instead of posting a positive comment, people come with negative comment. Facebook
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