In the TED talk “Connected, but Alone,” Sherry Turkle states how in our society more people would rather spend time on their cellular device or social media than spend time with others. On the other hand she exclaims that technology Is amazing and continues to advance but has negative downsides. “Over the past 15 years, I’ve studied technologies of mobile communication and I’ve interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people, young and old, about their plugged in lives. And what I’ve found is that our little devices, those little devices in our pockets, are so psychologically powerful that they don’t only change what we do, they change who we are. Some of the things we do now with our devices are things that, only a few years ago, we would have found odd or disturbing, but they’ve quickly come to seem familiar,just how we do things.” She goes on to say that were evolving into a new way of being with others. That even when were with someone we tend to still be using our technology to connect somewhere else. That more and more times she hears people saying I’d rather text than talk. With that said more and more people are losing the basic skills of communication. We talk just pieces of information when texting someone rather than talking to someone trying to get to know them. With texting, emailing, and other sources of communication thought technology we can edit and delete what we say. That we use technology to deal with the problems of human relationships.
Sherry Turkle is surely right about technology getting in the way with face-to-face conversations and interactions because through my experience I’ve been In situations where I would be talking to someone and they were paying more attention to their phone and not me. Moreover, I agree with the way she says that less people are getting to know each other by talking because more people would rather text than talk. So relationships are much different now than in the past. She contradicts herself by saying technology is wonderful with its advances, but has negative downturns.
“Over the past 15 years, I’ve studied technologies of mobile communication and I’ve interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people, young and old, about their plugged in lives. And what I’ve found is that our little devices, those little devices in our pockets, are so psychologically powerful that they don’t only change what we do, they change who we are. Some of the things we do now with our devices are things that, only a few years ago, we would have found odd or disturbing, but they’ve quickly come to seem familiar,just how we do things.”