Psychologist Sherry Turkle argues that the frequency with which we dive into our own devices while in the presence of others has led to “a new way of being ‘alone together.’” But critics say there’s more to the story.
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Filed by Kelsey Herron
Psychologist Sherry Turkle is well known in digital media and learning circles for her research on youth and technology. As director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self and author of “Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other,” Turkle has spent years studying people’s relationships with technology and how those ties affect the ability to develop meaningful relationships with others.
Her most recent contribution to the conversation, “The Flight from Conversation,” appeared this week on the cover of The New York Times Sunday Review. The essay takes a detailed look at what Turkle views as the deterioration of conversation, and it has led to some discussion online, particularly among education experts and parents.
Turkle argues that the frequency with which we dive into our own devices while in the presence of others has led to “a new way of being ‘alone together.’”
Technology-enabled, we are able to be with one another, and also elsewhere, connected to wherever we want to be. We want to customize our lives. We want to move in and out of where we are because the thing we value most is control over where we focus our attention. We have gotten used to the idea of being in a tribe of one, loyal to our own party.
She also discusses how social media allows us to present an edited sense of self through the constant retouching, revising, or even deleting of our interests, personal information, and photographs. Turkle suggests that we, as a culture, have learned how to “clean up” the demands of human relationships via technology, and the “move from conversation to connection”—or how we exist “alone together”—is part of this. And she makes the generalization that people have forgotten that there’s a difference:
Face-to-face conversation unfolds slowly. It teaches patience. When we communicate on our digital devices, we learn different habits. As we ramp up the volume and velocity of online connections, we start to expect faster answers. To get these, we ask one another simpler questions; we dumb down our communications, even on the most important matters. It is as though we have all put ourselves on cable news. Shakespeare might have said, ‘We are consum’d with that which we were nourish’d by.’”
Turkle also suggests that we can no longer handle solitude. “When people are alone, even for a few moments, they fidget and reach for a device,” she said. “Here connection works like a symptom, not a cure, and our constant, reflexive impulse to connect shapes a new way of being.”
And she reasons that people have begun using technology as a cure for loneliness, while she posits the opposite. “If we are unable to be alone, we are far more likely to be lonely,” she said. “If we don’t teach our children to be alone, they will know only how to be lonely.”
That point didn’t sit well with Dave Cormier, the manager of web communications at University of Prince Edward Island. His deconstruction of Turkle’s essay is chock full of intriguing counterpoints. Turkle, he writes, makes too many generalizations when it comes to conversation, and the “visceral” examples she gives deceives readers into thinking the “end of conversation” is some kind of inescapable apocalypse that has already begun to set hold. Cormier concludes:
Sherry Turkle has been at this for a long time. She has a cutting eye for seeing the in-between space of how technology influence[s] our own lives. In this New York Times piece she does an excellent job arguing for solitude. I yearn for it… and agree with her. When she turns to conversation, she loses me entirely. She has either had a uniquely perfect life filled with excellent and constantly available friends, or she has not been honest with herself.
This is not the first time Turkle’s research has sparked debate among technology experts and social media researchers. Scholars such as danah boyd, an expert on youth and the internet, previously have challenged Turkle’s ideas, including some of the points in “Alone Together,” which was published last year.
Internet safety expert Anne Collier also posted a rebuttal to Turkle’s NYT essay. Collier said she doesn’t buy the argument that technology is leading to conversation’s demise. She also critiques Turkle’s glib generalizations about peoples’ media use and the assumption that “always-on” technologies are supplanting deep, meaningful connections.
For Collier, this isn’t a showdown between technology and conversation; rather, she emphasizes the importance of learning how to navigate the added levels of interaction—and distractions.
“Turkle says that, “over time, we stop caring.” I’m no psychologist, but I disagree with that too,” writes Collier. “I see all kinds of evidence, including in the research, that ‘we’ are using social media as much to communicate how much we care about each other as to illustrate that we don’t. And many of us are demonstrating the latter when we divide our attention between someone present and a text message from someone not present.”
“If I may make a generalization,” Collier later adds, “I’ll say that we’ll never stop needing deep connection. But we are gaining many more depth levels to choose from – from a long, deep phone conversation or Skype videochat to fun catching up in a social game to a quick texting conversation about where and when to meet up – and other depth levels!”
Despite Collier’s qualms with the essay, she does say that she likes some of Turkle’s ideas for fostering conversation. Turkle’s suggestions include specific proposals such as creating “device-free” zones and more general ideas, like demonstrating the value of conversation to children.
If there was one point Turkle made that seems to resonate most with readers it’s the importance of listening:
Most of all, we need to remember — in between texts and e-mails and Facebook posts — to listen to one another, even to the boring bits, because it is often in unedited moments, moments in which we hesitate and stutter and go silent, that we reveal ourselves to one another.
from Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/macfound/iQaL/~3/r9ArSQsTsHY/
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