Social networking has had an ever-increasing impact on society. Technology has opened the door to a vast amount of information and the ability to transmit it to virtually anyone, anytime, anywhere. People are constantly checking their email, updating their Facebook status, sending tweets on Twitter, instant messages, and text messages. The debate over whether social networks actually connect us or keep us apart is ongoing. In the case of Steven Pinker, his essay “Mind over Mass Media” argues that media technologies have a positive effect on mental development. In contrast, Sherry Turkle's essay “Connectivity and Its Discontents” states that technology has a negative effect on interpersonal relationships. Although Pinker makes many excellent points about how technology is improving intelligence and Turkle provides great ideas about how technology is harmful to relationships, neither Pinker nor Turkle provide the best answer to this question due to their lack of credibility and inclusion of logical errors. We should instead use the Internet to its full potential, while being aware of the risks and dangers arising from social networks. In his essay “Mind over Mass Media,” Steven Pinker proposes that media technologies are beneficial to mental development. According to Pinker, the rise of new forms of social media has been linked to reduced crime and increased IQ. He supports this claim by stating that “the emergence of video games in the 1990s coincided with the great decline in American crime” (3) and that “the decades of television, transistor radios, and rock videos were…decades in which IQ scores continually increased” (3). It also mentions that new technologies have...... middle of paper ......: Exploring problems and ideas. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2014. Print. Sherry Turkle is a professor at MIT, founder and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, and a radio and television commentator. He argues that social networks negatively affect our interpersonal relationships. She says young people are increasingly exchanging text messages or comments on Facebook instead of talking face to face or talking on the phone. Turkle describes how we may be “connected” online, but in reality we are becoming increasingly distant due to the barriers in communication created by social media. He includes some personal stories to support his thesis about the harmful effects technology can have on relationships. This essay helped me present the “against” side of the debate on social networks.