Readings for 10/6/11: "Networked:" Technology’s ability to make us alone and together simultaneously

Source:

Turkle, S. (2011). Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. New York: Basic Books.

Excerpts:

Part Two: “Networked: In intimacy, new solitudes"

Overview & Synthesis:

In reading the second section of Turkle’s Alone Together, “Networked,” I couldn’t help but reflect back on my own use of technology. I must check my different email accounts about a million times a day. I do it when I wake up, I do it before I go to sleep, and I do it countless times in between. I check my Facebook just as often and my Twitter sometimes as well. And even if I don’t check them, the red blinking light of my BlackBerry is always there to remind me that I have messages waiting for me. Yes, it’s always there and it’s often annoying, but I can’t help but be connected to technology. I honestly don’t think I could live without it; or at least function properly in society for the long term.

In “Networked,” Turkle first opens the section by talking about cyborgs and the belief of some that continual connectivity could increase productivity and memory. Beyond this, she introduces the idea that connectivity offers new possibilities for experimenting with identity by providing a sense of free space. She continues on in the second half of the book to explore the relationship between humans and technology. She points out that despite all of these connections, people are actually increasingly functioning with less face-to-face contact. Her main point describes an arc: as we expect more from technologies, we grow to expect less from each other (Turkle, 2011, p. 295).

Turkle argues that despite the convenience of connection, what humans still instinctively need is each other. Through her interviews of people of different ages and social backgrounds on the terms of these connective technologies, she finds a great amount of alienation and dissatisfaction among users. She encounters adolescents who are unable to shape their identities through self-exploration, and instead turn to their online lives. She finds parents who communicate with their children more often, but with less substance. She sees professionals who feel more bogged down by their BlackBerries than they feel efficient. And in all of these people she sees users of social networks that feel friendships are shallow and lacking intimacy. Though the stories of these users, Turkle attempts to prove that although networking technologies were meant to facilitate communications, they have in reality pushed people further away from each other. We are under the impression that technology will help us control our lives, but we actually end up controlled by it.

            These technologies have also changed the way we act with each other socially. Children end up having to compete with technologies for their parents’ attention. Teenagers feel uncomfortable without their phones and would rather send a text or Facebook message because they find its immediacy and unpredictability unsettling. Our new society expects everything to be recorded or exposed and considers privacy a lost cause. Yet, we still have anxiety about who is out there listening or watching, since we perform on our online profiles and in our online worlds. Turkle (2011) states that digital connectivity can be used to manage specific anxieties about loss and separation (p. 176). This anxiety creates an even greater reliance on them to mediate our relations with others. The demand of the ‘always-on’ culture is tough, but it makes possible the connection when and where we want or need it, and we can easily make it go away (p. 160). Turkle (2011) argues that the use of the network in this way encourages narcissism, by having a personality so fragile that it needs constant support. This is because it teaches us to think of others as a problem to be managed or a resource to be exploited and encourages a new style of being with each other that becomes socially sanctioned (p. 177).

            I return back to my own reflection on myself and how I could not live without these technologies despite the issues they create. Turkle makes this same argument in her conclusion when she discusses the addiction metaphor. She says while it is tempting to talk about our reliance of technology in terms of addiction (for example the more time we spend online, the more time we want to spend online) it is not simply an addicting substance we can discard. Yes, it is true that we neglect each other and our problems with the Net are too distracting to ignore, but getting rid of these connections isn’t an option. We can’t get rid of the Internet, cell phones, music, television, or other technologies. Instead we have to find a way to live with these seductive technologies and make it work to our purposes (Turkle, 2011, p. 294). She states that this will be hard and it will take work, but since the networked culture is very young, there is time to make corrections.

Questions & Reflections:

In the discussion of Pete, the married man who used Second Life to have an extramarital relationship with Jade, my moral radar started to go off. It made me think about if this relationship is cheating or not. While it may be online and not in ‘real-life,’ Pete is still connecting emotionally and physically with a woman who is not his wife. This makes me ask the question, is it morally wrong to do thing that contradict with what you wouldn’t do in real life? Where are the boundaries between real life and online life and how do we maintain them?

As technologies continue to develop and ‘improve’ more and more, how long until we change the way we use them? One of Turkle’s interviewees, Sanjay, asks “How long do I have to continue doing this?” Are we destined to be tied down by demanding technologies the rest of our lives? Do we as individuals have a choice to escape from this, or is it something we have to work on as a society?

Another group of Turkle’s interviewees, a group of seniors at Fillmore, ask a probing question: “If it is always possible to be in touch, when does one have the right to be alone?” I would like to explore this further. As we gain new technologies that allow us to become increasingly more connected, our friends, family, colleagues, and clients expect us in turn to be more available. But as Turkle points out, this affects our solitude, development, and mental health. How do we find the right balance between availability and alone time? When do we have the right to be alone and how do we find time to do this?