Technology has a great impact to every individual in this generation. It is somehow became the ruler of our lives, by using it as a medium for today’s communication, but also destroys real communication. Sherry Turkle, a psychologist, discusses what the impacts of having technology in our lives were. And gave proof to those experiences by every individual in this regime of technologies. Does technology really help to start having a communication with someone or it will just ended up ruining hidden bonds?
In the video entitled “Connected but alone”, Sherry Turkle shares her own experiences of having a conversation with her daughter named Rebecca. It all started by receiving a text from her daughter saying good luck to her. At first, others may see this as a cute and sweet for a mother and daughter having this kind of conversation but the deeper you observe you will clearly see that there were flaws and disadvantage in this type of communication. All of us love to receive a text or a phone call from someone we love but having a big trouble of identifying if it was real or a scheme. We simply texts, posts, shares in social media the words we really wanted to scream words that we can’t say using our real voices. We wanted to stay in touch, makes our bond to the world grow stronger by continuously producing texts that won’t see the real you. An edited version of you was made by social media to connect with people, where we weren’t sure of how strong the bond is in the cable we were connected.
Social networking or media is a give and take. It builds a connection but will also destroy one. Hence, still using social media is a trend despite of its disadvantage to our communication. We wanted to always stay in touch to prove that social media has the fastest of gaining ideas and information to anything in this world. A recent study from a U.K. charity called Scope brought to light that out of the 1,500 Facebook and Twitter users they surveyed, 62% revealed feeling incompetent, and 60% reported feelings of jealousy as a result of comparing themselves to others on the platform. [1] With these information, we still go back and keep patronizing social medias because it gives connection- a purpose of social media without realizing its ability to lose this important thing, meaning, we lost the meaning. The feelings and ideas behind those sugar coated words were lost. Social media users are able to edit themselves and create a new figure. We became invisible beings on the screen until we do some actions that would notify others. We create our own identities. We have the control over how we want others to view us. We are the ruler, the ruler that destroys its own kingdom. This phenomenon was stated and named by Sherry Turkle “I share, therefore I am” – a force of social media, an intrinsically existential concept, knowing that someone out there has acknowledged a part of our identities, of our lives, that gives us a greater feeling of fulfilment.
Why do we need fulfilment? Does it bring us real happiness? Or a band aid that would make us feel better for the meantime? We feel happy and excited every time something pops up on our notification. We tend to be more vocal on social media instead of being vocal with someone. We discourages and neglect peers but wanted more attention on social media. We are unfair to everyone, to all of us. We cheat within ourselves. We wanted to be alone but wants companion at the same time. We let everyone see that we connect and are being together with others when in fact we’re alone and worst, we are lonely.
“We are lonely but we’re afraid of intimacy” said Sherry Turkle in her talk “Connected but alone.” We are afraid to get in touch to deepen the relationship, to discover more with each other. We became selfish and selfless. We demand for something to reject everything. We are afraid of intimacy because we think we will always get rejection. Not trusting ourselves that we can be more. We are afraid of rejection when in fact we are the ones who reject opportunities around us. Opportunities that might open a connection to the world, to people we were longing to have.
Alone together. Being together is somehow difficult when you feel alone. You’re with someone, you had companion but you don’t know until when or if it’s real or fake. We seem to be happy that finally, there’s this someone whom we think understands us but really don’t. In today’s regime, we tend to be more emotional, sensitive yet insensitive at the same time. Little did we know, the more we connect to social media the less the connection we had with people. And that’s the take. We receive a little amount of fulfilment but as it disappears, the bond we had with people slowly cuts. It was like a wire full of rust that’s hard to remove, a connection that’s hard to get back once broken. And that’s the saddest part of being alone together. We fake connection in social media just to be acknowledged, to receive fulfilment.
In summary, the abovementioned scenarios and ideas shows the real issues of technology. Technology brings us close yet breaks the connection within us. It destroys the bond we have before it risen and changes it with weak connections. It brings chaos instead of peace. With this situation, we are nearly experiencing depression. We overthink and overreact. That’s because we had less connection with people than we had on social media. And that must be change. It’s only us who can change what’s happening to this world. We have the control, capacity and capability to do so. Let’s stop this regime of being alone together and start to have a strong connection with people. Be positive and sensitive because that’s the least thing we can do.
References:
I share therefore I am. Social media effects. Retrieve from https://karunasavoiieauthor.com
[TED]. (2009, July 22). Gordon Brown: Wiring a web for global good [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7rrJAC84FA
[TED]. (2012, November 16). How social media can make history – Clay Shirky [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASZJE15E0SY
[TED]. (2012, April 3). Connected, but alone?|Sherry Turkle [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Xr3AsBEK4
Technology is a tool and all tools can be used and abused. The user must be in control of the tool he uses, we may not allow the tool to dominate us. What you point at with this article is very important and should be more discussed.