Can You Hear Me Now?: Can You Hear Me Now?

Technology continues to grow more advanced by the day. The technology people use today reflects the overall intelligence of the human species as a whole. A survey was conducted in the year 2009, and it showed that 89% of American residents own a personal cell phone. Recently, groundbreaking innovations are becoming increasingly convenient and increasingly relied upon. Cell phone ownership has only increased as a result of new innovations. These statistics reveal how technology has become ingrained into people’s everyday lives. All of this has brought up a very interesting debate: should humans be relying so much on technology? On one side, humans should rely on it because it makes everything much easier than, say, two centuries ago. On the

In Sherry Turkle’s essay, “Can You Hear Me Now?”, Turkle writes that “what people mostly want from public space is to be alone with their personal networks” (381). This statement shows that there is a disconnection between a person and his surroundings, even in public areas, due to the recent explosion in instant messaging and online chatting. Turkle ends her essay by saying that the real question is not about an artificial intelligence (A.I)‘s true potential, and what they can accomplish, but the relationship between humans and these A.I’s (387). Through this, Turkle is trying to say that it does not matter how great machines can be, but that a human’s relationship with these machines is unnatural and wrong. Human relations with machines further isolates them from other animals, and will eventually isolate them from each

He writes about how letter writing is the greatest and most intimate form of communication. At the end of chapter three, Henkin notes that the post office “brought together friends, family, and acquaintances who were physically separated”, but that it also ironically brought together “[strangers] into physical proximity” (90). Through this conclusion, Henkin is trying to prove that the post office brings all sorts of people together, and that the post office is universal. Comparing this with Sherry Turkle’s first statement, there are many differences with how people interacted two centuries ago compared to now. Unlike instant messaging and emailing, the old fashioned letter was used sparingly for special occasions. Henkin’s overall argument in his book is that this is what made the written letter the most effective method of communication. The people back then understood how innovative the mailing system was, and the people today take the Internet for granted. Unlike the postal network, which unified people with similar beliefs through the post office, the method of communication today divides people by isolating them from