Very insightful talk about the perils of using smartphone and social media technology too much

Do you get a feeling of lonliness when you read your Facebook news feed? Well, a lot of people have.

The following are the key points of Sherry Turkle’s Speech on technology:

–          Technology is taking us places we don’t want to go

–          Our smartphones are so physiologically powerful, that they don’t change what we do, they change who we are

–          People text or email during corporate board meetings, at friend gatherings…everywhere

–          People seem to want each other if and only if we can have each other at a distance in amounts we can control

• Goldilocks effect: Not too close, not too far, just right

 

SOURCE: TED                                    This is what we see more and more

An 18 year boy who uses texting says to the presenter wistfully: “…someday, someday, but certainly now, I would like to learn how to have a conversation”

What’s wrong with a conversation right now? He replies, “it takes place in real time and you can’t control what you are going to say”, we get to edit, and delete using technology.

–          Human relationships are demanding, and we feel we can clean it up with technology

–          The sad thing is that those text messages, don’t allow us to learn about each other very well

–          The feeling that no one is listening makes it more enticing to have a Twitter or Facebook account, because there are so many automatic listeners when you update your feed

“The feeling that ‘no one is listening to me’ make us want to spend time with machines that seem to care about us.”

–          We expect more of technology and less from each other, we are lonely, but are afraid of intimacy, because technology appeals to us most when we are most vulnerable, thus we are designing technology to give the illusion of companionship without the demand of friendship

–          The phone:

• Gives us attention where we want it
• Feel we will always be heard
• Makes us feel we will never have to be alone

Before it was: I have a feeling, I want to make a call and talk about it

Now it’s: I want to have a feeling, I need to send a text

• The problem with the “I share therefore I am” mentality is that if we don’t have connection, we don’t feel like ourselves

–          Solitude is where you find yourself, we use others to support our fragile sense of self

–          We think that always being connected is going to make us feel less alone, but we are at risk, because it’s the opposite that’s true, if we are not able to be alone, we are going to be more lonely

 

Sherry Turkle emphasizes:

• Develop a more self-awareness for technology and for ourselves
• Start thinking of solitude as a good thing, make room for it
• Create sacred spaces at home and at work, and reclaim them for conversation
• We all really need to listen to each other, even the boring bits

We have each other, and we have the greatest chance of success if we recognize and embrace our vulnerability

Life is hard, technology is simple, optimistic, and thus we falsely think that robots will somehow make our lives more complete.

We need to think of the many ways that technology can lead our lives back to our real lives and our own bodies.

Life Quote: Let’s talk about how we can use technology to make this life the life we can love. Get out there, have a face to face or phone conversation with someone, instead of texting them. Life is much more fulfilling than the technology we portray it in.

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