Sherry Turkle describes a scene from a conference she attended in Japan on robotic technology in 2007. The ballroom was packed with audience members engaged with checking email, downloading, and surfing the net all the while the main speaker being ignored for the most part. At times she indicated the audience would lower their laptop out of “digital courtesy. The networking was what she described as being “tethered “ to one’s virtual identity and that it counted more than a physical presence.
She is referring to the how the internet has provided space for “projection of self.” She goes on to say that people found ways to explore the mundane side of their lives and act out fantasies, have virtual sex, let the inhibited side out to play in a certain manner. One caveat of the instant messaging, multitasking, and cell phone communication world is that we have become a culture that is not making time for uninterrupted thinking. Turkle equates this to living in contradiction with life as we so quickly must acclimate to the technological world. She makes a good point of some unable to discern when it is time to pull back from their screen presence (referring to the Blackberry explosion) despite the demands of technology to maintain connectivity.
When addressing the issue concerning youth, the problem is even more critical. The younger generation has not known the sense of independence and has never had the experience of being alone (regarding connectivity) according to Turkle. Where once adolescents relied on peers for feedback, now do so through instant messaging and through cell phones. She shows a relationship with technological feedback to being reformatted to a small screen and a “flattened out” process. The fact that privacy is a major concern with older generations is not an issue with the younger individuals. Turkle suggests the youth are more concerned with socializing and don’t care if that equate to compromising confidentiality to maintain social presentation. The more exposure and gratification is well worth the latter.
Turkle also refers to “Split attention” as more people are connected while talking, driving, during business meetings, visiting, attending classes, or even during dinner with their families. She states the behavior is now quickly becoming “normalized.” Life has changed immensely as we can have avatars stand in for representation; we order almost everything online, thus avoiding having to take time to shop physically. We engage with synthetic voice-recognition protocols to handle troubleshooting and administrative issues through telecommunications. Turkle states that life in forever linked to objects and we interact.
She addresses the issues of how we interact today with computers, how or what they’re used for, and where we are going in the future. Whether society becomes more alienated from physical presence or that technology will enhance and change how we share the physical and virtual worlds will depend on our relationship with machines.
http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2007/0507/176.html
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I cant help but agree more with you and your blog. But the third paragraph really stuck out to me. Explaining how the youth of today has never experienced being alone...holds much truth. Teenagers are connected by the hip with cell phones in particular. Especially now that facebook messages, and emails can be sent to them via text. They are never apart from these connections and technologies. Also with teenagers not really caring about privacy such as adults, reminds me of Don Tapscotts book "Grown Up Digital" That we're reading for DTC375. He explains that the Net Generation is extremely different than the Boomer Generation. He explains how Boomers were grown up in a world wear there parents werent very fearful of outside dangers...When Boomers became parents, they knew the dangers, experiencing them first hand, and wnated to keep the net gen indoors....Which drove the Net Geners to computers and technologies. Which is now in todays world just as dangerous as being outside. Why? Because Net Geners are not considering their privacy as a big issue. Youth throw out a ton of information onto the virtual world...and dont care about anything else but grasping social acceptance.
ReplyDeleteVery well said Sarah, and the comment about DTC375 I was going to said that we were discussing that google is providing internet in specific cities and I'd said if you are on the net all the time your are traceable all the time, and what was the response of the other classmate, "I don't care as long as am connected." It is also kind of bad to generalized the Net Geners as not caring for their privacy because well, we are them and I'm pretty "paranoid" about what information is on the net about me, and I'm sure others would think the same, so it should be more like 20/60/20 with the extremes of not caring and being paranoid and the middle where they are some what careful but still give way too much info.
ReplyDeleteCare needs to be taken to avoid using technology to live our lives for us. The pixar movie WALL-E just came to mind. On the ship technology did everything. The people became hugely overweight and lazy. They didn't even realize that they were missing out on huge elements of life. Passing through their lives as little more than spectators made it so they didn't even realize the ship had a pool, or that food could taste good. This is not to say that I believe a little QVC or e-bay is really hurting anyone, but I do think we need to make sure we always stay active participants in our lives.
ReplyDeleteThe comment when Turkel refers to "Split Attention" reminded me of a conversation I had with my son a while ago. I noticed that when he hangs out with his friends they will be texting constantly while carrying on a conversation at the same time. I pointed out that I thought this was rude and disrespectful. He also will do this when I am talking to him and I have to ask him to put his phone away while I'm talking. He pointed out to me that it's not rude and that everyone does it, he also said that it's rude if he doesn't respond immediately back with his text messaging.
ReplyDeleteI guess if no one is offended in the group your talking to then it's ok. This is what separates the generations right now. They are actually trying to be respectful by multi-tasking. I've learned not to take it personally, but I still prefer the texting to wait until the conversation is over.
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