The novel, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (2011) written by Sherry Turkle, presents many controversial views, and demonstrating numerous examples of how technology is replacing complex pieces and relationships in our life. The book is slightly divided into two parts with the first focused on social robots and their relationships with people. The second half is much different, focusing on the online world and it’s presence in society. Overall, Turkle makes many personally agreeable and disagreeable points in the book that bring it together as a whole.
To start off with, Turkle vividly describes how robots are used as a substitute for other people or things and help imagine robots in every day life. My Real Baby was noted as an example, which quickly turned into My Real Babysitter. My Real Babysitter was an idea formed from the idea that children are left alone all too often and babysitters are sometimes hard to come by in cases of emergencies. This robotic babysitter would replace the human version, integrating itself into daily life. The children explained that there is only so much a robot babysitter would do and it wouldn’t create an even playing field between human and robotic babysitters. Turkle came to the conclusion that children with lively and creative babysitters would rather keep theirs and children with boring babysitters would prefer the robotic version. The AIBO, a robotic dog, was also used as an example in the novel. In the case of eight-year-old Zara, she says that with a teddy bear you have to put in the work to create the teddy bears thoughts and feeling, but, with the AIBO, it already thinks what it wants and is expressing. Also, if the robotic dog is bugging you, ...
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...ered to our mobile devices, pushing ourselves into being alone. Turkle says, “…the network prepares us for the ‘relationships with less’ that robots provide.” (p154). We are no longer connected based on how close we are to each other, but how available our mobile devices are to us at the moment. We always have our mobile devices on us, therefore making us think we are always connected. She states that the device serves as a portal to being tethered to the people and places. She goes further to describe how these mobile devices can symbolize themselves marking themselves as alone. I definitely agree with this point. When I am placed in an uncomfortable position in a crowded place, I immediately take out my phone and fiddle around hoping nobody will bother me. It symbolizes my departure in the situation from the physical realm into the mobile and technological realm.
Alexander Stowe is a twin, his brother is Aaron Stowe. Alex is an Unwanted, Aaron is a Wanted, and their parents are Necessaries. Alex is creative in a world where you can’t even see the entire sky, and military is the dream job for everyone and anyone. He should have been eliminated, just like all the unwanteds should have been. He instead comes upon Artimè, where he trains as a magical warrior- after a while. When he was still in basic training, and his friends were not, he got upset, he wants to be the leader, the one everyone looks up to.
though he is moving away but at the same time he claims that he feels
Speak is a cleaver and an ironic title for a story in which the main character chooses not to speak. The story is written in first-person narration from the point of view of protagonist, Melinda Sordino. Speak is written like an interior monologue in the mind of an introverted teenage girl, like excerpts from her personal diary during her miserable freshman year of high school. Instead of blending in and finding her way through high school. She withdraws and secludes herself from the other students. She calls herself an "outcast." Melinda is so desperate to hide from the world; she turns an old janitor's closet at the high school into her safe haven. She cuts classes to hide in her closet. How lonely could this teenage girl be? All of these characteristics are common in assault victims. Melinda has been seriously disturbed by something traumatic and doesn't feel comfortable talking about it, nor does she really trust anyone. Teenage depression is a common
"Number One!" by Jill Nelson is a story that Jill Nelson tells about her father and his beliefs. She speaks about a Sunday breakfast that her family had every Sunday. This breakfast was like there church every Sunday, and her father was the preacher. He always preached about being number one, and he represented number one by holding up his middle finger. Her father never told the family exactly what he meant by number one, and when she was old enough to have the courage to ask, her father had gone through too many stages to remember. This is a good learning story.
In both works, the authors identify how the influence on technology is changing how humans identify themselves. Carr using his experience to explain this idea giving the reader the idea that he is feeling the effect technology is taking in his identity. “Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory “(53). He gives the reader a firsthand insight of how the influence of technology has change his own identity changing his mind as a whole. He also gives the example of becoming machinelike. A metaphor he uses to explain that humans are becoming emotionless, and less caring for certain ideas. They are becoming cold and brainless are the new part of their identity altering the ability to think. While, Turkle uses everyday life examples to emphasize this point. She states that people create avatars online to be represent their self the way they want to be. However, being able to change a certain aspect of an individual life alters the way they perceive who they are. According to Turkle “people who gain fluency in expressing multiples aspect of self may find it harder develop authentic selves. Some people who write narratives for their screen avatars may grow up with too little experience to share their real feelings with other people” (289). The meaning behind Turkle words is that technology is influencing how individuals view themselves, and become remapping the idea that humans are social
In “Connectivity and its Discontents,” Sherry Turkle discusses how often we are found on our technology. Turkle states in her thesis “Technology makes it easy to communicate when we wish and to disengage at will.” In the essay are interviews on several different people, of all ages to get their view on the 21st century. Teens are starting to rely on “robot friendships,” the most communication teens get are from their phones. Are we so busy trying to connect to the media that we are often forgetting what is happening around us?
Gilbert begins his book by informing the reader that the sole thing a psychologist will be remembered for is one thing: how they finish the sentence, "The human being is the only animal that _______." So, after serious contemplation, he concludes that "[t]he human being is the only animal that thinks about the future" (Gilbert 4). He then goes on to explain that our ability to imagine is what allows humans to ponder the future. The frontal lobe of our brain is what advanced homo habilus into homo sapien; it is where we plan and think about the future. Additionally, whenever we think about the future, we often think about good things happening to us, leading us to believe those events will actually occur; or, we think about the future so that we can try and control it, since humans have an innate need for control.
In the world today, people are constantly surrounded by technology. At any given moment, we can connect to others around the world through our phones, computers, tablets, and even our watches. With so many connections to the outside world, one would think we have gained more insight into having better relationships with the people that matter the most. Despite these connections, people are more distant to one another than ever. In the article, “Stop Googling. Let’s Talk," author Sherry Turkle details her findings on how people have stopped having real conversations and argues the loss of empathy and solitude are due to today’s technology. Turkle details compelling discoveries on how technology has changed relationships in “Stop Googling. Let’s Talk,” and her credibility is apparent through years of research and the persuasive evidence that supports her claims.
Traditions, heritage and culture are three of the most important aspects of Chinese culture. Passed down from mother to daughter, these traditions are expected to carry on for years to come. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, daughters Waverly, Lena, Rose and June thoughts about their culture are congested by Americanization while on their quests towards self-actualization. Each daughter struggles to find balance between Chinese heritage and American values through marriage and professional careers.
Turkle provides dialogues of individuals who avoid social interactions at all cost and would rather communicate through technology, as it is just an inconvenience to have direct confrontations. These dialogues strongly support Turkle’s argument that we’re creating a greater gap between others and ourselves. The reason we are lonely is because we place less effort into building relations with others.
However, in spite of Mary Shelly’s warning, it seems man has gone forward with its creation. Yet the result has not been a world of death and destruction, but a world of connectivity and immediate satisfaction. Sherry Turkle writes “we look to the network to defend us against loneliness even as we use it to control the intensity of our connections” (Turkle, 274). Before the postal system it could take months before hearing from someone across the country. In today’s age a text message contains the same thought of reaching a person thousands of miles away, with the added benefit of instant gratification. This instant gratification, in the eyes of Turkle, “redraws the boundaries of intimacy and solitude,” (Turkle, 272). At face value the boundaries of intimacy and solitude are in fact merely human construction, it is impossible to change the mode of communication without changing boundaries. In this case, while some barriers are constructed between humans physically, many more paths open for human interaction on an intellectual level. Perhaps the future is not the interactions of human physically, but the interaction of minds through a common source, such as the
Reunion, by John Cheever, is a story told through the eyes of a young boy, Charlie, who is recalling a meeting with his father who he hasn’t seen for more than three years. It is set in New York where Charlie’s father lives. He meets up with his father during a stop over between trains.
An individual’s welfare can be explained as their state of contentment that can be achieved throughout one’s life. Increasing this state of well-being can be obtained by pursuing and gaining what is intrinsically good for the individual. Experientialism states that subjective experiences are the sole things which are intrinsically good and capable of promoting welfare in individuals. The plausibility of this view arises from the fact that we desire experiences not just for their instrumental benefits, but because they are good ‘in and of themselves’. This view has faced some fervent opposition though, most strongly in the form of Nozick’s Experience Machine. Robert Nozick conveys that experiences are not the only things that are intrinsically good and that we desire genuine connections to reality as well. In response to this, I will present Shelly Kagan’s argument that genuine connections to reality are unrelated to an individual’s welfare and therefore, cannot contribute to the well-being of an individual and Experientialism remains standing as a strong philosophical theory.
“Technology is supposed to make our lives easier, allowing us to do things more quickly and efficiently. But too often it seems to make things harder, leaving us with fifty-button remote controls, digital cameras with hundreds of mysterious features.” (James Surowiecki) Whether or not is known, technology has become too heavily relied on. It is replacing important social factors such as, life skills and communication skills. While technology is created to be beneficial, there must be a point in time where we draw the line. Once face-to-face conversations begin to extinguish, this means that there is too much focus on the “screen culture”. In her writing, “Alone Together”, Sherry Turkle talks
The children in Turkle’s work have an innate need for robots as is similar with the innate need in Jayanthi to be an independent and strong individual. Children need emotional connections or friendships with people and that is exactly what the robots like Tamagotchi and