Jeffrey Rosen Analysis Essay Example for Free

Jeffrey Rosen Analysis Essay In Jeffrey Rosen’s essay â€Å"The Naked Crowd†, he argues that people have a desire to prove and establish themselves as trustworthy in today’s society. Pressured by the public eye, many feel the need to convey personal details about themselves in order to gain this trust and feel more secure. Rosen critiques this idea, noting that if everyone exposes personal information, individuality is lost and anxiety about identity will remain. Rosen explains how individuals are constantly urged to market themselves to a world full of strangers via the Internet and its numerous social networking sites. They are expected to create a personal image that is seen as consistent and memorable. Many let out their thoughts and emotions hoping for a reassuring response from the audience. However, studies show that sharing too many personal details online may in fact have negative effects when it leads people to vent their feelings in a void, without the support of a receptive audience. Rosen also highlights how the Internet is creating an unbalanced relationship between liberty and security. He questions why people are more concerned with feeling connected than with the personal and social costs of exposure. Rosen discusses how â€Å"our conceptions of personal truthfulness has changed from sincerity to authenticity†(415). More and more people in today’s society have no problem disclosing intimate details to strangers. Some even create false images of themselves to appeal to others as trustworthy and intelligent. Rosen brings up the idea of â€Å"personal branding†, in which individuals present the best version of themselves in order to establish and maintain emotional connections with strangers. These personal branders thrive upon approval from the public, hoping to become more successful in their careers. Rosen states that amongst the chaos of everyone struggling to stand out as unique, personal branding ultimately leads to conformity. The most substantial binary opposition embedded in Rosen’s essay is the idea of privacy versus exposure. It is now common to share the most private of moments on the Web for people to consume. Not only has the Internet made it easier to reveal these personal details to a broad audience, it has unfortunately become more difficult to recover information that has already been posted. Once people decide to go public, there really is no turning back. Rosen expresses his concern with valuing exposure over privacy. Lionel Trilling of Harvard University feels that â€Å"there should be an honest correlation between what is exposed in public and what is felt in private†(Trilling 415). In other words, not everything we feel has to be shared. People have this inaccurate assumption that forcing an emotional connection with a stranger by sharing personal details will make us feel like we belong. However, exposing too much information about ourselves may lead to us feeling more alone and confused about our identity. In conclusion, individuals are too willing to give up their privacy in order to feel a sense of emotional connectedness. Our desire to gain trust from a crowd of strangers blinds us from the reality that exposing personal details has detrimental homogenizing effects. Works Cited Rosen, Jeffrey. The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious Age. 2004. Print. Trilling, Lionel. Sincerity and Authenticity. Harvard University Press, 1972. Print.