Sherry Turkle believes that technology is taking over people’s lives and the way that they communicate. When going through both of her interviews, I have to admit that the majority of the things she was saying I would agree with. As I would listen I would think to myself, “I do that all the time”. One of the main things that Turkle discusses is how people are preferring types of communication that are not as personal. For example, people prefer texting over talking to someone on the phone. By texting, a person does not have as personable interaction with the person they are communicating with. You can have delayed responses and do not have to answer right away. This causes a different type of discussion because, in a way, you are not having a one on one relationship with the person. Who knows if they are telling other people what the conversation is about or they have time to think about the answer they want to give. The person who is sending the text does not even know if the person they are talking to is by their phone. By using texting over a phone conversation, a person is behind the scenes.
When thinking further into the topic of texting compared to phone conversations, I realized that the language is also a lot different. Most of the time when a person texts they are not using full words. TTYL will mean talk to you later, or IDK will mean I don’t know. So, texting creates a language that is not even a real one. By having people text so much and not use the phone, their social skills are decreasing and also the type of relationship the person has with the person they are trying to communicate with changes.
Turkle has pointed out many good beliefs about technology in the sense that the changing of the tools we have to communicate is changing the way we act. When there was no such thing as cell phones or computers, people had to have conversations through meeting and talking. This made a lot more personable connection and more interactivity between the people. I really believe that by texting and talking online compared to face to face discussion, the way people interact is changing. People no longer are social in the sense that they are sitting in their own room talking to someone compared to interacting with them.
Another way that this is being done is through Facebook. In the past, people had to show other people their pictures by actually meeting up with an individual and presenting it to them. This way people could have a discussion. Now, people just put pictures up on Facebook for people to view. People rarely print out images compared to having their information stored on a memory card and placing it on the computer to view. Also, people can just place on Facebook where they are located. This deletes the idea that people have to call others to say where they are going. There does not have to be interactive communication to get this message across anymore.
On the other hand, Facebook has changed the type of discussions that are being done. Before, people had to interact with someone to their face. This would make a conversation limited in the sense that people have a more difficult time saying something to someone when they are right next to them. Facebook has caused different types on conversations in the way that people are now more open to saying things about another person. A person is not as nervous to say mean things to another when they are not around. This new way of communication can also cause problems because someone can say mean things about a person to a large amount of people, but be able to "hide in their room" so they will not have frontal conversation.
This interview has brought up many wonders to me as how our society will be years from now with communicating. Will people just not talk to other people at all to their face, or will we just communicate through computers?
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