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Anna Aichele

Professor Vieregge

Writing 101

30 September 2021

Academic Summary

Jeffrey Rosen, law professor and legal author, highlights in his published New York

Times essay, “The End of Forgetting”, that the internet and social media are creating a world in

which past mistakes can never be forgotten. Although Rosen provides stellar solutions to this

problem, he still finds their flaws and explains why they are not feasible. Throughout this

summary, I will be highlighting Rosen’s main ideas and concepts, his solutions to this problem,

and ultimately why they do not work to protect us from the internet’s ever watchful eye.

In Rosen’s opening anecdote, he sheds light on the story of Stacy Snyder, a twenty-five-

year-old teacher in training who “posted a photo on her MySpace page that showed her at a party

wearing a pirate hat and drinking from a plastic cup” (Rosen, 594). This photograph was found,

and her school deemed it unprofessional and that she was promoting drinking to her underage

students; she was ultimately fired. This is a great example of the idea that anything you post

online can affect you in the future, no matter how big or small. 

One of Rosen’s solutions, a website called ReputationDefender, monitors your online

presence and contacts websites personally to take down content if it appears to be offensive or

harmful to your reputation. They can also bombard the internet with positive or neutral

information about its customers to make it much harder to find harmful information. The

downside of this solution, however, is that it comes with a cost. This resource can cost the

customer anywhere from “$10 a month to $1,000 a year; for challenging cases, the price can rise
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into the tens of thousands” (Rosen, 599). For the average consumer this just isn’t feasible. A

second solution is to sue websites for posting slanderous or false information, but this does not

apply to true information or opinion. However, even in the event of winning the suit, the website

is still not obligated to take down the information since it is public. Again, this solution also

brings in a class barrier and costs the defendant money.

Nowadays, people are becoming more aware of their online presence and are seen taking

measures to ensure their privacy. A recent study found that “eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year-olds”

(Rosen, 604) are usually more concerned than older people about their online presence, what

they post, and how they are perceived online. Rosen argues that our online identities will not

only be shaped by laws and technology, “but also by changing social norms” (Rosen, 604).

Learning to forgive and forget may be a hard social norm to develop because we as people

unconsciously discount positive information about a person much more heavily than they

discount negative information (Rosen, 604). However, if we can learn to forgive each other for

past mistakes, we can begin the changing of social norms.

As a society, we need to adjust to the evolution of technology. If you are about to post

something on social media, think before you post as it could have a detrimental effect on the rest

of your life. Although there are solutions to fix your mistakes, they come at a cost, and could be

avoided altogether with avid forethought.

Academic Summary Rationale

Before I began composing my Academic Summary, I annotated and highlighted

important information I believed to be relevant to a more advanced audience. I tried to give a

very brief summary of each chunk of the essay, so I could quickly refer back for additional
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information while writing. I began to sort and summarize my information in a way that would

entertain and be comprehensible to the audience. 

In my outline, I made sure to compose my summary in the likeness of the essay so if after

reading my summary, an interested party would like to read the initial essay, they would be able

to navigate through it easily. For example, my introduction aligned with the essay with

introducing the author and problem, my first body paragraph told the eye-opening story of Stacy

Snyder, my following body paragraphs highlighted solutions and why they are not feasible, and

my ending body paragraph brings up a solution that could very well be in our future. This order

aligns with the original essay very closely. I chose to include the story of Stacy Snyder in hopes

that it would connect with my audience on a more personal level. I believe there has been a point

in everyone’s lifetime where there was a picture posted of them, intentional or not, that upon

further inspection was not the greatest idea and came with consequences. 

I included a wide variety of language I believed would best benefit my audience and

draw their attention. For example, I used words such as stellar, feasible, and detrimental to show

that my ideas were well thought out, in hopes that my audience would perceive my summary as

reliable. In conclusion, I made my choices with the thought of grabbing and holding on to my

audience’s attention, improving the overall validity of my summary, and including personal

applications.

Elementary Summary

Jeffrey Rosen, a college teacher and author, wrote a paper in New York Times Magazine

called “The End of Forgetting”. In this paper, he talks about how everything you post on social

media, such as Instagram or Facebook, can affect you in bad ways years after it is posted. Rosen
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also talks about how there are some things we can do to fix this problem, but they have their own

problems and aren’t very good. Now I’m going to explain to you Jeffrey’s main ideas and how

he thinks this problem should be fixed. 

In his paper, Jeffrey talks about a teacher in training named Stacy, who made a post on

social media and it had a bad effect on her life. In the post, she was seen drinking alcohol at a

party. When her principal found the picture, she was told she was teaching bad manners to her

students and she was being unprofessional. Because of this photo, she was unable to graduate

from college and become a teacher. Stacy tried to argue that because she wasn’t working at the

time that it was okay, but a judge said that the school had every right to fire her and Stacy ended

up losing her job. Jeffrey Rosen used Stacy’s story as an example that anything you post online

can have a negative effect on the rest of your life.

Jeffrey’s first fix for this problem was a website called ReputationDefender. This website

looks at your social media and makes sure nothing bad gets posted to a different website and

makes you look like a bad person. The only problem with this is that it costs money and some

people can’t afford it. A second fix for this problem is that you could take legal action against a

website if they post untrue information about you, but you can’t do that if the stuff is true and

just makes you look bad. The bad part about this solution is that it also costs money and some

people just can’t afford to pay for it.

As a group, we need to change with the changes in technology. This means think before

you post something because it could be bad for you in the future. Even though there are some

things that could fix your mistake, it costs money, and could be avoided with good thinking.

Elementary Summary Rationale

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Before I began composing my Elementary Summary, I referred back to my Academic

Summary and wrote down the key points that I could keep relevant to a younger audience. I also

tried to pinpoint what words and phrases I could leave out or change for a younger audience, so

they could better understand what I was saying. I then began to sort and summarize my

information in a way that would entertain and be more personal to a younger audience.

When I began to compose my essay, I decided to keep the same order as the original

essay so it would make more sense instead of jumping around. For example, my introduction

aligned with the essay with first introducing the author and the problem, my first body paragraph

told the story of Stacy Snyder, and the following body paragraphs explained possible solutions to

the problem. This order aligns with the original essay very closely. I chose to include the story of

Stacy Snyder in my elementary summary because I believe since the audience goes to school and

understands what is and is not acceptable, they would be able to understand the situation and also

the consequences.

I also included simple language I believed would be best understood by my audience and

keep their attention. For example, I used words such as good, bad, and untrue to help my

audience understand what I was saying. I tried to leave out any statistics or quotes because I did

not think that my audience would be able to properly understand that type of information. In

conclusion, I made my choices with the thought of grabbing and holding on to my audience’s

attention, helping my audience understand this large essay in more simple terms, and including a

personal story so the audience would become attached and more interested in the subject at hand.
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Works Cited

Rosen, Jeffrey. “The End of Forgetting.” Fields of Reading: Motives for

                Writing, edited by Nancy R. Comley, 10th ed.,  Bedford/St.

            Martins, 2013, pp. 594-607.