Konnikova introduces the idea of the Dunbar number and “the rule of three” in the first page to set up her point that people have groups of friends or acquaintances that we see in person. She further drives this point home when she talks about how army regiments and things from hundreds of years ago, before Dunbar’s research, also support his findings. This sets up the comments she makes about her concern for social media and how it’ll affect human social bonds in the future. She observes that online friendships make take up places in our social circles even if we can’t be with them physically; this being said she’s worried it could have adverse affects on humans moving forward.
Author: rgardner2 (Page 7 of 7)
Before:
“The Dunbar number is actually a series of them. The best known, a hundred and fifty, is the number of people we call casual friends—the people, say, you’d The Dunbar number is actually a series of them. The best known, a hundred and fifty, is the number of people we call casual friends—the people, say, you’d invite to a large party. (In reality, it’s a range: a hundred at the low end and two hundred for the more social of us.) From there, through qualitative interviews coupled with analysis of experimental and survey data, Dunbar discovered that the number grows and decreases according to a precise formula, roughly a “rule of three.” The next step down, fifty, is the number of people we call close friends—perhaps the people you’d invite to a group dinner. You see them often, but not so much that you consider them to be true intimates. Then there’s the circle of fifteen: the friends that you can turn to for sympathy when you need it, the ones you can confide in about most things. The most intimate Dunbar number, five, is your close support group. These are your best friends (and often family members). On the flipside, groups can extend to five hundred, the acquaintance level, and to fifteen hundred, the absolute limit—the people for whom you can put a name to a face. While the group sizes are relatively stable, their composition can be fluid. Your five today may not be your five next week; people drift among layers and sometimes fall out of them altogether.”
After:
The Dunbar number is actually a series of different ones; the first and most well known is a hundred a fifty, the number of friends you’d invite to a dinner party or casual friends. After this number it was surveyed that the number grows and decreases at about a “rule of three”. The next number is fifty or the number of people we call close friends or those you’d invite to dinner. The next circle is fifteen these are the friends you turn to for sympathy and confide in. The last circle is five and is you closest and most intimate group. The largest groups can extend to five hundred when including acquaintances and fifteen hundred is seen to be the absolute limit of people who’s name we can put to faces. While the numbers themselves are relatively concrete the people in each group can fluctuate quite frequently.
I used less language and made it shorter and easier to digest as a reader. This paper wasn’t very long but I felt in this paragraph specifically was a lot to try and digest as a reader. There’s a lot of very important information here so it should be easy to understand yet I thought it was slightly convoluted. This in turn made the paragraph shorter but I think it made it easier to understand.
- Write a brief summary, using your words and direct quotes, of Megan Phelps-Roper’s personal transformation, as described in Chen’s piece. Be sure to include 2-3 direct quotes (with proper MLA citations) that illuminate changes Phelps-Roper experienced along the way.
The article starts off with a quote from Phelps-Roper and honestly I think this is the best way to start the explanation of her transformation, “‘Thank God for aids!’ she tweeted that morning. ‘You won’t repent of you rebellion that brought His wrath on you in this incurable scourge, so expect more & worse! #red (Chen, 1).'” Phelps-Roper starts her life in the cult and church revealing in the downfall of others. She said she’d picket funerals of dead gay soldiers and rejoice on social media when celebrity idols died. This is what started her doubts about the church and their morals as a celebrity she had liked died and while she felt sadness for it the rest of the church celebrated. She goes from calling LGBTQ+ individuals the f-slur to doing this, “One evening, after speaking at a Jewish festival in Montreal, she and Grace passed a group of drag queens on the sidewalk outside a cabaret. She felt a surge of disgust…She and Grace ended up dancing on stage during intermission (Chen 20).” I think this is a great show of her change of heart. She goes from thanking God for the AIDS epidemic to going to a drag queen show and enjoying it. I think it shows how she started to think of individuals as people not as evil sinners who deserve hell.
2. In your opinion, how did social media embolden Phelps-Roper’s initial message as a spokesperson for Westboro Baptist Church? How did interactions via social media influence her drastic shift in personal belief? Use at least two direct quotes, framed with help from Ch. 3 of They Say/I Say), to support your claims.
I absolutely believe that originally social media helped to embolden Phelp-Roper’s message. This is not to say that it didn’t later become the reason she left the church, but I think this quote shows the effect it had on her in the beginning, “Phelps-Roper was exhilarated by the response. Since elementary school, she had given hundreds on interviews about Westboro, but the reaction on Twitter seemed more real than a quote in the newspaper (Chen, 2).” It’s become so common today for our emotions to get tied up to what others think of us on social media. I think this is what Phelps-Roper experienced when she first started her account. Any attention was good attention for the church. But I do think social media was also the start of her turn around. If not social media the people she met on social media. Specifically David Abitbol and their interactions on Twitter, “…he responded. ‘U mean like holding up God Hates Shrimp, err I mean Fags sign up? Your ‘ministry’ is a joke (Chen 8).'” This was his first response to her on Twitter and I think it’s what started her turn around. He used examples of the churches bigotry against them and this was the first moment it was probably truly shown to Phelps-Roper just how many people disagreed with the church’s morals. It wasn’t just some small protest where passersby would give them dirty looks. This was out there for the whole world to see and disagree with. I think this, and the other people she grew close to who changed her mind, are a large part of the reason she realized this hatred wasn’t good.
3. “Anybody’s initial response to being confronted with the sort of stuff Westboro Baptist Church says is to tell them to f*** off,” said blogger David Abitbol (Chen 79). But it was less-aggressive communication styles that “got through” to Phelps-Roper, that in part influenced her to reconsider her belief system. What style(s) of conversation (consider message, tone, perspective) had the most impact on Phelps-Roper? What might her story teach us about confronting hate speech? What about redemption?
This story shows us that people are most likely to react better to less confrontational forms of communication. When people are nice and sincere in trying to get others to learn about things people are more likely to respond well. This is especially true when the information is coming from the group that someone is directing their hate towards. In the end she fell in love with one of the people who helped changed her mind and is friends with another one. This is a great story about how hate being met with love and understanding can change a person’s mind. However I think we have to be careful when considering stories like this. It would’ve been very easy for another person from Phelps-Roper’s church to just dismiss these people with more hurtful comments. And it could be extremely damaging to someone to be called multiple slurs while trying to explain to someone why homophobia and anti-semitism is wrong. Stories like this are very heart warming and I’m glad Phelps-Roper had a turn of heart but I don’t want individuals to make their own mental health suffer trying to make hateful individuals less hateful because of things like this. Some people take the burden of educating others too much to heart and if the person is more hateful than Phelps-Roper and more dangerous something much worse could be an outcome.
4. If you were to meet Phelps-Roper today, what question would you want to ask her, and why?
I’d want to ask her what she thinks of God now. Is she still a believer? Is she still a christian? Or is she an atheist? I can’t imagine what being in such a rigid and cult like group centered around God could do to someone’s spiritual orientation. Now that she’s out of that life and trying to convert others out of it I want to know what opinions she herself formed about the afterlife and God.
Chen, Adrian, et al. “Conversion via Twitter.” The New Yorker, 16 Nov. 2015, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/23/conversion-via-twitter-westboro-baptist-church-megan-phelps-roper.
