“The devices inside our pockets are so psychologically powerful that they don’t only change what we do, they change who we are.”, a profound line from Sherrie Turkle’s TED talk Connected, but Alone which I think left a great impact on me, as a youth of this modern generation. Going back to her talk, she shared her insights and observations about how technology invaded the Earth, hence affecting almost every aspect of our lives especially the way we communicate. She accentuated the mere fact that we are allowing the smallest of devices to control us, and change who we really are. People now are way too invested in their devices to the point that they use it everywhere and in almost everything they do like on board meetings, classes, presentations, and sadly, even in funerals. Turkle also shared the idea of the “Goldilocks Effect,” which means, people want to remain not too close but also, not too far from others, just right. Most individuals today like having someone at a distance which they can control. Meanwhile, on the later part of the talk, Turkle made again a strong point that the reason behind why we expect more from technology and less from each other is because technology has always been there especially during our most vulnerable stages. Moreover, it gives us three things to look forward to: attention when we want it, ears when we need it, and sense of assurance that we are never alone. Turkle ended the speech encouraging everyone to learn how to be alone without seeking for the false empathy of technology.
| We must learn how to live the reality of life, rather than the beautiful fantasies technology is giving us.
While I listen to Sherry Turkle’s speech, I realize a lot of things which before, I don’t even pay much attention to. I realized how much technology affected everyone already, how technology changes the way we are supposed to live, and how people became dependent to the different products of technology. Indeed, the life we live today is very much different from that of before. Technology has conquered almost every aspect of our lives including the way we communicate with each other. Let me quote Turkle’s short but precise description of today’s communication trend, “Connected but alone”, “Together but not Together”, technology has made us this way, we always seem to be connected with everyone without noticing that we are actually slowly drifting apart from each other. I often see group of people who are physically together but mentally and emotionally apart because they are too busy pressing their smart phones, updating everyone on the internet of how they’re doing, forgetting that they actually have people just in front of them whom they can share random things. Most of us today prefer texting, chatting, posting online rather than communicating personally. We find it convenient; we learned how to embrace its benefits, while we neglect to recognize how it may affect our relationship with other people. I’m not against these things, we can’t deny the fact that they’re already necessities today, however we shouldn’t let it hinder our chances of communicating personally. The connection we have through these small devices is nothing compared to the connection we can have through talking and sharing talks personally with others.
Meanwhile, I can’t blame people from being too hooked to technology because even me, I won’t deny the fact that sometimes, I also find communicating using my phone more convenient rather than talking personally. Chatting allows me to think rationally first before sending a message unlike when talking in person, there’s no delete or edit button once you already conveyed your message. I think that is one of the reasons why some people are afraid of actual conversations, just like what Turkle said on her speech “people are afraid of conversation because it’s in real time and you can’t control what you’re going to say”. “Texting, email, posting let us present the self as we want to be, we get to edit, and that means we to delete, and we get to retouch - the face, the voice, the flesh, the body, not too little, not too much, just right”, another line from the speech which sounds accurate that’s why people are very fond of social media rather than personal talks.
Technology has made us dependent like we start believing that we always need someone to be there for us. We started hating being alone, it makes us feel anxious. This fear of aloneness is a problem we don’t talk enough about (Arndt K., 2018). Being alone feels like a problem that needs to be solved so people try to solve it by connecting through social media. It often gives us the feeling that we’re not alone, that a lot of people are willing to listen to what’s bothering us. We neglect to think outside the box, I agree with Turkle’s stand on this that maybe this connection is more like a symptom rather than a cure. "It expresses but it doesn’t solve an underlying problem”. It only gives us a temporary satisfaction of being able to express what we feel at the moment but it doesn’t really cure what’s hurting inside of us and doesn’t really fill the emptiness we are feeling.
“We are lonely but we’re afraid of intimacy”, this is a line from Turkle which tells another fact about the people today. There are times when we feel lonely and alone but we won’t choose to have a deep talk with someone because we are afraid of intimacy. Instead of having an actual conversation with someone, we usually choose to share it on our social media accounts maybe because according to Turkle “It gives us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship”. And I think that’s the problem, we keep on nagging on social media of how life sucks, of how unfair the world is, of how life could be this lonely, when in the first place, we are the one pulling ourselves to that kind of misery. Now, ask yourself, who really is to be blamed?
At this point of our lives, we can all feel how technology is rapidly redefining our human connection. However, we can still do something about it. Why not we try reconsidering how we use it and how we let it affect us? Why not we start learning how to make real conversations with other people? Why not we learn how to share and listen personally? Why not we spend more time with our family and friends rather than spending almost all of our time updating our social media accounts? Is it that hard to make these things possible? I hope no!
While we still have the chance, I hope we find time to talk and develop a more self-aware relationship with each other, and with ourselves. “Focus on the many ways technology can lead us back to our real lives, our own bodies, our own communities, politics, and planet. They all need us.” What a great talk Madam Sherry Turkle!
