1. Set Focus
Frame the inquiry with these essential questions: What does it mean to be social? Why is being social important?
2. Read and Discuss
Have students read the debate and then answer the following questions:
- What is the issue being debated? How does it relate to current events? (The issue is whether social media is making us less social. The issue is timely because more than half the world’s population uses social media, and experts expect the number of social media users to continue to rise for years.)
- Evaluate why these two authors might be interested in and qualified to comment on this issue. (Sherry Turkle and David Weinberger are academics who study the social impact of the internet. Turkle is a professor at M.I.T., and Weinberger is a researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center.)