Sherry Turkle: Alone Together.
Professor Sherry Turkle wrote a book, Alone Together, which is very critical of social media. He says the way some people frantically communicate online via Facebook, Twitter, and instant messaging is a form of modern madness. Turkle believes that technology isolates us from real human interactions with the illusion of allowing better communication. Others disagree, saying that Facebook, Twitter, and instant messaging have caused more discussion, not less. In their book, they focus on two main aspects; How people manage robots and how social media shapes socialization.
“Performance” is a concept that has been widely used in the book. In the chapter “Robotic Moment,” she talks about humans seeking for Warmth and comfort from the machines despite being aware of the fact that robots can’t provide any of those. “Performance” is therefore used to describe a situation where people are seeking intimacy with machines that has no feelings and can never have feelings. Machines are designed to act as if they are humans i.e. as if they cared or understood us. Robots, therefore, is not a form of life but a performance art because they put on artistic acts and performances, which make them have some human way. Turkle argues that the “performances” created by artificial intelligence has changed the aspect of relationships. Some of the latest technology from Japan has the ability to “understand” what you are feeling and can make someone feel much better. For the people who have gotten hold of this technology, their personalities, and social identities have been dramatically affected because these people have had great problems with their normal relationships. Robots take away someone’s time but at the cost of diminishing relationship between the person’s family and friends. People would feel much more comfortable dealing with Robots because they can’t judge or make them feel guilty like how humans do. But in reality, that’s what life is, being judged, and being made to feel bad. In this regard, the personalities and social identities become disconnected. Turkle objects that we “perform” ourselves because of the fact that humans are dynamic in nature; they have feelings and have the ability to be sensitive to various issues. Humans also have the ability to have sexual and romantic connections, while Robots cannot. While there are challenges in human relationships, Robots cannot be the solution to the ultimate happiness. The disconnection from other humans because having a relationship with Robot e.g., Stress, depression, and loneliness can far much be very dangerous.
Social networks like Facebook, skype, or twitter has become a major platform for people to express themselves.The current generation is known as a generation that can connect around the world at the push of a button. We can share recollections, stories, and news with the evidence in just an instant. In any case, the very platform on which individuals can communicate through photos, content info, and video is negatively received. It’s the ideal opportunity for individuals to understand that online networking and the individuals who use it as a base are not foes. Not every person via web-based networking media is fixated on the number of preferences they get or the amount of praises they get. Sharing and imparting is a piece of human character, and it’s not awful to need to post a selfie or compose an article about the advancement of the day.
With web-based life, we can see that dependency on technology is that it can remove the incentive from our connections. Whenever abused, technology has the ability to occupy us from having genuine and veritable encounters with our families. For example, my family always makes it a point to put away our cellular devices during dinner time. Another problem with social networking is that it has created a society where people want to show off or prove the lead a particular life, which in reality does not exist, which is commonly known as “faking life.”
As social media evolves from being just a mere place of self-expression, it has turned into a regime of self-surveillance. When people start to pay attention to their self-worth because of the observation they have made from the people, they seem more relevant in social networks.
Because taking pictures has become the order of most people’s lives, some spend hours on their phones to find the perfect picture which they are convinced will manage to get the maximum number of likes and eventually to make them feel good about themselves. Taking a good picture is not a wrong thing to do. The problem comes when people put a lot of value in getting the “like.” What does a “like” really mean? Literally nothing. A “like” is only a number on an image that increments when another person twofold taps on it. It is truly useless. Getting self-esteem dependent on a phony check of what number of individuals “like” a photograph is pointless. Basing self-worth off of Instagram likes isn’t gainful; however it ends up lowering opinion of yourself.
People in social media have a very high appetite for the number of likes they get on social media. The obsession revolving around people getting more likes has gone too far. Some people get ashamed when they are following more people than the people who actually follow them. People have gone to the extent of paying certain social media apps which are able to manipulate the number of likes and follower for their client at a very high fee. Social media has no rule books that require their clients to behave in this manner, yet people have made these rules for themselves, which in reality explains the big problem with technology.
My experience as a young man having social media, smartphone, and other similar technology is that they have negative impacts just as much as it has many benefits in my life. First, the relationship in my family has completely changed. My sister is always busy with her work and arrives in the evening, my mother is busy with work, and my dad is always in his office dealing with his meetings. The only time we get together as a family is when we are having dinner. That would be the best time to have a talk and conversations as a family, but that is never the case. Even at the dinner table, everyone is always glued to their smartphones. An interview is created when one of us shares something funny on their phones as we laugh, and everyone proceeds to peruse their mobile phones. This has created an invisible barrier within our family, just like Ellen and her grandmother.
Besides the problems social networking is causing to my family, social networking is also taking a toll on friendships. I can recall most of my childhood memories with a lot of nostalgia because during those times, there were no social networks, and we had to go out to make friends and play soccer after school; it just didn’t matter what we did we just wanted to have interactions with friends. After a while, most of us started to acquire smartphones, and that’s when the rain started beating us. Slowly, we were getting engulfed on social media. During the break time or after classes, we were no longer going to play. It was time to visit the web or social media, and sooner or later, we were creating social media groups to talk to one another. Visits and meetings will friends became a very limited affair.
Technology is also taking a toll on professional relationships. Workers no longer interact with each other because everyone is glued to their smartphones or logged into their social media accounts. Even a meeting is held over a video conference. For example, during this COVID-19 pandemic, technology has allowed people to work from home, and the meeting is held over video conferencing technology. This situation will even have a much more significant impact on people meeting up because people are getting used to staying in the house and communicating over Skype, Facebook, and other networks.
In conclusion, Professor Sherry Turkle believes that the over-reliance of people on the technology brings a negative has a negative impact on the relationship with fellow humans. Although technology has made the world a global village by bringing together people from across the globe through a fast and easy telecommunication network, technology still posses a significant problem to many people who cannot use it carefully to engage in genuine conversations. We can’t be dependent on communicating through technology since it negatively affects our relationships within our family, our friendships, and our relationships within a professional environment.
Works cited.
Turkle, Sherry. Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. Hachette UK, 2011.