Erica+H+Final+AmEx+2013+Speech

=Title of Speech=

=Text of Speech= I was having a really hard time coming up with a topic for this speech, but then as I was mindlessly looking through my Facebook news feed, it hit me; I HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT FACEBOOK—the people, the statuses, and the concept of “liking” something. Have you ever been scrolling through your Facebook news feed and all of a sudden you see one of those pictures that say something along the lines of “LIKE IF YOU LOVE PIZZA, IGNORE IF YOU WORSHIP SATAN.” I may not be super religious, but I know I don’t worship Satan and I am completely against liking stupid pictures and/or statuses so it leaves me in kind of an awkward place. I can’t be the only one who finds this extremely annoying and unnecessary. I don’t even see the point behind them. Does it bring meaning to your life to get likes on your picture that you completely guilt tripped people in to liking? This, along with many other reasons is why I HATE Facebook. Have you ever seen the pictures that say, “Mommy said if I get 1,000 likes, she’ll get me a dog” or the pictures that say “1 like = 1 prayer for the people injured by the tornado in Oklahoma” with the image of a home that was destroyed by the tornado in the background. These pictures usually do get thousands upon thousands of likes, but do they ever really accomplish anything? Yes, I know that it does mean a lot to some people in Oklahoma to know that the rest of American recognizes what they are going through, but how about actually taking the time out to physically do something instead of just liking a picture? How about showing them you care by actually making a donation? I was looking through my Facebook feed earlier today and I saw a picture of a premature baby with some kind of illness with the intro to a long status reading, “PLEASE DONT IGNORE THIS. Many will read but will ignore, That’s why many are called but few are choosen..” What is choosen? I just really hate everything about these pictures. I don’t know if I am the only one who is “Facebook friends” with overgrown middle schoolers or not, but I can’t stress enough how hard I facepalm every single time I see one of their statuses. They are freshmen and sophomores who are still using q’s instead of g’s, h’s where they do not need to go, semicolons because they think it looks pretty, and numbers as letters. The other day I saw this status that said, “Haha got kicked ouuta class again xD. #Fuck#School” and you can’t even imagine how much I wanted to just reach through the computer and slap some sense into this girl. Then there are the classic statuses about drugs, “Maryjane is the only girl that will never let me down. ♥ ” You don’t understand how incredibly easy it was for me to find a status about drugs on my news feed. In the past hour or so I have seen at least 5 “TBH” or “truth is?” 2 “Like and I’ll rate you from 1-10,” and 2 “LMS and I’ll answer these questions about you.” all with horrible spelling and terrible grammar. Is it an ego boost to hear from someone, “TBH I see you around school?” Maybe it is just the people that I’m friends with, but I don’t think that is the case. But the thing that I hate the most about Facebook is the fact that whenever I get bored, I find myself just scrolling through my news feed like a zombie. Half the time, I don’t even realize what I am doing because it’s like I’ve been programmed to check my Facebook whenever there is a dull moment in my life. I’d rather be doing anything than spending time on Facebook, but for some reason I feel the need to check it. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything productive with my phone besides read a book with the kindle app. I only use my phone for social media sites, which I could go without, texting friends, which I could go without, and calling my parents, which is probably the most important of the three. I find it astonishing that more and more kids are relying solely on communication through text instead of an actual phone conversation because they don’t feel comfortable on the phone. Although it does do a great job of relieving awkward moments whenever I’m passing someone by in the hall who I know, but don’t know well enough to stop and say hi so I just pretend like I am on my phone, I feel like my phone and technology have taken over the vast majority of my life and I am determined to take it back. Instead of wasting away my brain cells with people who don’t understand the difference between choose and chose; I want to be doing something more productive with my life. In the America I wish to grow old in and raise my kids, I want people to not be so glued to their smartphone and not be ruled by technology. I want people to stop relying on their phones or any other electronics for entertainment and pay more attention to what is going on around them. I don’t want to wake up 50 years from now and rely on technology for everything that I do from the moment that I wake up to the time I go to sleep. In the America I wish to grow old in, I want teenagers to stop killing their brain cells by spelling every single word wrong in a sentence for aesthetic purposes; I want people to stop posting statuses about their personal life for everyone to see and “like”; I want people to go out and play with their kids instead of being cooped up in their separate rooms, each with their own television set. I want the days back where you go to the park with your family and just hang out, not the days where you sit around at the dinner table and everyone is on their phone. In the America I wish to grow old in, I just want people to truly be alive again, instead of walking around like zombies due to their reliance on technology.

=Cite Your Sources= Every idiot on my Facebook news feed.