In Cindy Long’s article, I Need My Space, she explains the use of the networking site, Myspace. Long begins her article by discussing a young girl’s entrance into high school, and the loss of her friends. She uses this story to explain Myspace to her audience members, and eventually leads this to her topic at hand. Long informs her audience of the negative aspects of Myspace, but she neglects to take a stance on whether or not the website is good or bad. Her connection between explaining the website and raising the audience’s concern is good, but she does not make her thesis clear. “Making connections is what powers the popularity of sites like MySpace, but it can also be cause for concern” (408). She brings awareness to her audience, but that is all she does. Her article is not argumentative by any means, and it is more informative. Long gives the audience members information and examples to explain what she is stating, but she never clearly states what she wants the audience to do with this information. For example, she discusses an issue a teacher had with her students creating an imposter account, and the difficulty the teacher had trying to take down the account. She used this example in support for why her audience should be concerned, but she never closed her example with any reasoning as to why the audience should care. Her very next sentence from that example states, “MySpace requires users to be at least 14, and MySpace users under 16 are automatically set to private…”(409). This sentence does not state anything as to why the audience needs to be aware, instead Long informs the audience of Myspace’s current policy. Another criticism is that Long’s article is highly disorganized. She jumps from a teacher informing her students about “the different things that can happen when they use these websites without thinking” (409) to how some senior at Kennedy High School decorates his Myspace page. The last error Long made reoccurred multiple times throughout her article. Long continued to state the website as MySpace, but if you were to research the title on its very own website, it is actually stated as Myspace. When informing an audience on any topic, the author must make sure the information they are providing is correct on all accounts, no matter how tiny the detail.
Overall, I think that Myspace has come a long way from when it first started. I had a Myspace account early on in high school, and the safety policies that are available today were not available then.. I think the media is doing a good job at keeping people aware of online dangers, and Myspace has defiantly taken that into account. As with anything, there is always a chance for modification and change. As much as the Myspace that is currently being used has improved, it is not a polished draft. Further advancement in technology includes new awareness that will require networking sites, such as Myspace, to change even more. I was aware of much of the information Long provided in her article, so I cannot give her much credit towards my observations. It would have been nice if Long focused more on the addicting aspects of Myspace users, since her title is I Need My Space. This point could have strengthened her informative article by presenting a health factor to her audience members. Myspace is one portal to online networking; there are many others that can have the very same issue Long discussed.
