<p>This is my essay:
In the modern world, very little of the majority of society’s personal lives is kept private. What with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other such social networking websites out there, everybody’s friend wants to know what their friend’s friend is doing and when. You have to take a picture of that bowl of ice cream you’re eating, or your new Sketchers. It’s just about impossible to find an individual in this society who hasn’t revealed a tiny bit of personal information online. Based on these statistics, I affirm that people indeed should make more of an effort to keep some things private, especially home addressed, phone numbers, emails, locker combinations, and PINS for credit/debit cards. But social networking isn’t the only outlet in which people divulge either personal information or secret information about another person that should be kept private. Although social networking has greatly hindered the ability of this generation’s youth to communicate face to face, that is exactly how both some boys and girls are choosing to insult, bully, and put others to shame for their own morbid enjoyment. To do so would be ‘unpopular’ and “to pretend not to have those thoughts or feelings” (Velleman). But it turns out that if we didn’t have social networking, this issue in itself would be a whole lot worse. With social networking, kids get to hide behind the barrier of a computer monitor and still call others repulsive and derogatory names, offending such things as sexual orientation, race, and religious beliefs. Without this barrier, those brave enough to still continue with the harassment, which is fewer than expected, because all bullies are some form of coward, will go full-force in the person’s face. On the other hand, some might say that there are too few of these people, brave enough not to respect those they may dislike, but to insult them right to their faces. But tell me this: how can you call words like ‘n&%^$r’ and ‘s^%t’ too few to hurt? The lives of suicidal teenagers across the world can answer that question. But aside from the youthful fountain of shame, adults too use social networking and gossip all the same, and this can diverge, more than youth, anyway, from the bullying aspect and more towards the revealing of personal information that could cause such horrible events as stalking, suicide, and date rape. A woman meets a seemingly intriguing single foreign man online and he asks for money to come and see her in the States. She gives him her credit card number to withdraw cash, and bam, she becomes a victim of identity theft. There exist all too many of these stories. It’s mainly because of fear. Fear tells us, falsely, of course, that honesty cannot be acheived without telling ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth’. We have been brainwashed into thinking that all the baddies of society, like O.J. Simpson, Lee Harvey Oswald, even Justin Bieber, were liars, and thus people falsely trusted them. But it turns out that the slow degradation of moral values in our society has blinded us from the fact that personal and religious truths not only exist but are necessary to individuality. Basically, what must be kept private makes us who we are, not what other people want us to be; otherwise, it wouldn’t be ‘private information’ in the first place. In conclusion, I think it’s best to say that, although there are too few exceptions to this, our society has to do a better job of returning to the even as far as religious foundations of this great country in order to make peace among ourselves and with other nations. Among these values is truth, and with true comes both personal, and only what others absolutely need to know to help and work with you. We have so many conflicts and wars going on in the world today, but when you think about it, all of these come from bullying. And if we all just knew the difference betwen personal and pubic selves and truths, this world would be a lot more peaceful. Remember, a wise man once said, “It has been said that you should love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say that you should love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; for if you love only those who love you, what recompense will you have?” (Jesus Christ, The Passion of the Christ - 2004)</p>
<p>2014-2015 SAT Practice Essay
Could you please grade on 1-6 scale and give comments? Thanks!</p>