Super Sad True Love Story demonstrates that everyone in this society uses this technology and social media to communicate and stay connected. They also use this technology to learn about the norm, and copy it to blend it. When Sally is talking to Eunice, she explains that she wants a Saami summer bra because “everyone’s wearing them. Even in Fort Lee,” demonstrating how Sally wants this article of clothing just because others have it and her reliance on technology makes it so easy for her to order it (Shteyngart 31). This is not new in our society. With all of the social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, we too understand seeing someone online and wanting to copy them. While wanting to copy an outfit is not harmful, it can lead to other major harm in our society. As Kimberly Leonard states in her article, “Is Social Media Making Self-Harm Worse For Teens,” these social media sites make it too easy to follow the crowd. Seeing others do a practice, such as cutting, can trigger another’s own desire to do the same. In her article, Leonard explains how easy it is see other people’s lives on social media and want to be similar. Both in our society and the society of Super Sad True Love Story, do individuals use social media to change themselves. Lenny bases his self confidence on being a certain status as an attractive man in a public space. He changes his identity and his actions in order to increase this arbitrary number. When Lenny describes the feeling he gets when his “male hotness skirted into the 600-s,” he states that he “would like to describe this utterly new feeling to you, diary, but I fear it will come out in purely evangelical terms,” illustrating how Lenny’s self confidence purely relies on this social media practice. The number that he receives and seeing others get higher on the list, triggers him to change. Similarly, in our society, we see what others are doing on social media which triggers us to want to fit in and change our own actions accordingly, which can clearly be harmful for ourselves.

Shteyngart, Gary. Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel. New York: Random House, 2010. Print.