A Turkle coming Out of Her Technological Shell

The reason for this blog post is analyze the lecture of Sherry Turkle. She feels that we are becoming too enslaved by our technological devices. Technically speaking she thinks that people are beginning to prefer to interact with each other through their technical devices like your cell phone or tablet. This is actually something I agree with and have given significant thought to.  I have noticed a trend in these people on social websites who cry out for help with depressing status updates and dreary photos. Then these people refuse any physical interactions sometimes hosted through that very social website. Another thing I’ve noticed become more popular is people using these outlets to post things like, “I’m bored, text me.” This shows me that people have begun to relate social websites to how a person would have used to feel about the typical bar scene and text messaging has replaced “asking someone up to your place” for a choice of phrase. A good example of how this is engraining itself into our society is a movie called Robot and Frank. In this movie technology has advanced to the point that these humanoid robots have been developed to care for and provide companionship for the elderly. One line that I really enjoyed from her speech and that really stuck with me was when she said, “the illusions of companionship without the demands of friendship”. I like how she is basically saying that it is easy to like someone’s status on Facebook, but when you invite everyone to your party and how many of them do you actually expect to show up. My generation actually has a phrase for this; it’s called a ‘Facebook invite’. I try to remain physically connected to me friends but I know the appeal of the filter bubble. It’s nice to choose when and where you interact with someone without ever having to leave home. I’m not necessarily concerned with trackers but I do acknowledge that a person should keep the threat in mind. I think the worst example that I can think of that I would consider myself guilty of this is when I was talking about commenting on someone’s status and I said that I preferred to speak that way because you could say everything you were thinking without being interrupted. This is my feelings on the subject and what I took away from Sherry Turkle’s seminar.