Watch: Connected, but Alone? a TedTalk by Sherry Turkle (https://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_connected_but_alone?language=en)
Authenticity in the Age of Digital Companions, by Sherry Turkle (2. Turkle, Authenticity in the age of digital companions.pdf )
Instagram use is linked to increased symptoms of orthorexia nervosa by Turner and Lefevre (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5440477/)
In Sherry Turkle’s Authenticity in the Age of Digital Companions, the author discusses how even simplistic machines can be deemed alive, thoughtful, and emotional by people. Turkle explains that there are many instances of people interacting with machines and not doubting whether they feel and think. From children with Furbies to the elderly in nursing homes, there is a readiness to project our own desires onto machines as long as they engage us in manners indicative of feelings and thoughts (Turkle 69). Having taken a number of philosophy courses and being interested in artificial intelligence, the question of whether something is sentient has intrigued me. Especially for modern artificial intelligences that are more capable of imitating human behaviors, it is difficult to ascertain whether there is a distinction between human and machine. After all, neural networks, designed based on the human brain, can be argued to share similarities to humans in how they learn. For example, one may argue that there is little distinction between a student learning, synthesizing, and imitating academic literature and an LLM imitating example texts from the Internet. However, as Turkle indicates, this debate on whether these machines are actually sentient or feeling may be a moot point for already existing digital companions. Even for relatively simplistic machines, adults and children show a readiness to overlook the stark difference from animals and establish relationships with these digital companions (Turkle 66). So, when engineers design digital companions, they have to concern themselves with the fact that users may project their desires onto the machine, even if engineers view the machine as simplistic as Eliza. This can also have implications for machines that engineers did not intend on having an emotional connection with users, like Siri, Alexa, and ChatGPT.
I have studied Turkle for the last three years as a Grinnellian. With every class that I take that continues to study her work, she continues to captivate me with her findings, because what she studies is just so fascinating to me. The baby seal robot that she was discussing is named Paro, which is a therapeutic robot that is used in nursing homes and with children to provide them with a fluffy companion that will listen to them and comfort them. The sad thing about this robot is that it is often employed when someone feels lonely and disconnected from other humans. While it is wonderful that these people can find a connection amidst the absence of any previously, what is harmful about it is how robots like these warp our views and expectations from other humans on how we should interact. We expect a higher level of perfection from our peers and expect a smooth flow of conversation that an imperfect human cannot provide.
This unattainable expectation makes us the loneliest that we have ever been. Although we are the most connected that we have ever been, we are separated socially. Social media is having so much negative impact on our mental health in general as well, not just in the loneliness aspect. It is affecting our eating habits, our body image, our hunger for validation, etc. We are losing sight of what it means to do things for ourselves and our happiness, whether that is being comfortable in being alone, eating what we enjoy, or making things to make them. We need to be comfortable with considering our happiness a priority again and realize that getting uncomfortable will only improve our lives in the long run.
Turkle’s TED talk was frighteningly accurate for being nearly a decade old—she even referenced Blackberries in it. Without knowledge of the scope of technological evolution over the time since then, it is interesting that predictions such as the ones she made in her presentation are increasingly prevalent in our time. When she mentioned the discomfort people feel when alone, and the almost instinctual reach for a comforting device, I unhappily related. When she spoke of our disinterest in other people, or rather our “selective interest,” I begrudgingly empathized. And the reality—that these trends were prevalent even in the early days of the iPhone, when streaming content on our cell phones was in its infancy—is unnerving. I think about my younger self and my desire for technology, to have what other kids in middle school had, and I am disturbed by the power it had over our development. In many ways, I feel our generation is one of the last that got some normalcy in our adolescence in which we were not constantly exposed to technology, and, like Turkle mentions, the last to have our social skills developed without technology injecting some influence. Even so, we are not immune to the social changes that have come about with the ever-increasing breadth of tech; we are more lonely than ever, despite our almost immediate access to anyone in or out of our social circles; we are on edge and angry and anxious, and despite the wealth of resources available to us, it may feel as daunting as ever to reach out and seize them.
In terms of Turkle’s Ted Talk (great alliteration), I think the big issue here is that a lot of people (including myself) are super self-centered and so since everyone doesn’t care about us as much as we care about us, it can cause friction between how we view the world and how others do. This is exacerbated by internet systems that constantly serve up personal content, screaming that they only live to serve. Like, of course a robot friend would be desirable for a lot of people: it’s entire existence is based in the goal of being the best possible friend that it can be to you. There’s a really good piece by Catherine Brewer (https://neisserj.files.wordpress.com/2023/02/brewer-2021-could-you-be-friends-with-a-robot-1.pdf) that goes exactly into this issue and argues (quite compellingly, I believe) that a robot could theoretically fulfill all that human friends do.
In terms of the ON paper, I think a large part of the issue is the pushing of convenience and objectivity onto an issue that’s really individual and context-dependent. Yes, reducing consumption of processed foods is generally good, but really what you should eat depends a ton on who you are and what you need. Beyond that, Instagram is helping push the societally-determined “ideal” body and then also “selling” the solution via fitness communities, which obviously doesn’t give them any incentive to reduce either.
Turkle’s reading posed a philosophical and challenging question. She illustrated her point using various examples, such as Farby, Eliza, and Palo, to demonstrate how humans can form emotional connections with robots and technology. Furthermore, she discussed the implications of this phenomenon for our 21st-century society.
Humans often attribute emotions to objects that exhibit movement. Additionally, humans tend to form emotional connections with objects when they are capable of movement, communication, and physical interaction which can extend to relationships with robots. However, when these emotional bonds with robots become excessively strong, they can lead to societal issues.
Consider how it can disrupt human relationships. When people turn to robots for emotional fulfillment, it can weaken their connections with one another. Films like “Her” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_(film)) provide a vivid portrayal of how technology can impact human relationships.
However, it is important to emphasize that dismissing relationships with robots as unnecessary, fake, or harmful isn’t a constructive perspective. Turkle’s reading highlights instances like Palo, which proves that these connections can be genuinely helpful, such as providing companionship for the elderly.
Excessive emotional relationships between humans and humans can indeed harm individuals or society just as relationships robots can. For instance, human relationships can lead to serious issues like domestic violence and stalking which are significant problems worldwide.
We can identify our emotions, but we often assume others feel emotions, even without concrete proof. In this context of uncertainty, humans are somewhat like robots, whose inner workings remain a mystery to most users.
I am not sure how I feel overall about computers / technology as relational objects. To some extent, I think the critiques of, for example paro the robot, are more critiques based in an idea of personal responsibility, rather than in a consideration of what is actually best for the people who actually interact with them. This is not to say that I think these human/ robot “relationships” are overall good, just that the place of origin for these critiques are not neccesarily focused on net good for the sake of those interating with relational robots. The critique, at least to some extent, considers the behavior of the one who “should” be interacting with the elderly in paro’s place. I think this is also a valid approach for critique, because overall, of course we should prioritize the well-being of humanity as a whole, I just find it interesting that the critique does not center those who interact directly, and seemingly happily, with paro. I was honestly not a huge fan of the ted talk. I kind of felt like it was a. directed towards a very middle/higher class, able bodied audience in a way that failed to consider the full spectrum of social media/ internet use. Also it just felt like a very doom-oriented view of things, like very much “oh my generation didnt have that so its dangerous”. I definitely think there are unhealthy ways to interact with social media/ internet ,etc. but this felt a little dramatic? to me.
Turkle’s assertion that “we remove ourselves from grief and from our revelry and we go into our phones” is one that stuck with me. In the age or robot companions that do the things you want, how you want, and exactly when you want, why would anyone choose to messy human companionship? While studying robopets last year, I particularly thought of this in terms of how choosing these pets of “bio pets” could lead to situations wherein instead of technology simply allowing us to remove ourselves from grief, technology acting as a way wherein grief never has to be encountered at all (because those robopets may never die, as long as the company that produces it decides it is profitable).
I also think of Turkle’s discussion of how children growing up now have a different notion of what counts as ‘alive’ as compared to that of previous generations in her article about authenticity. I have not quite decided how I feel about this though.
I do disagree with Turkle about her stance on robot companions in situations where people have no companionship. Like the example of the use of Paro in nursing homes, the deployment of such robot companions is not replacing a human relationship that would have been there otherwise. While I recognise that there are many structural reasons for why socially marginalized individuals are isolated, there have been studies that show that, in such cases, robot companions can alleviate pain and feelings of loneliness. Ultimately, we cannot treat the use of robot companions in these specific situations as the final solution to structural issues (much as in the case of VI-SPDAT), but they sure are better than the social isolation currently afforded to these individuals.
I found the article about Instagram and food really interesting. I was recently having a conversation with a friend who traveled to Turkey, and she is someone who cooks a lot and values food of different cultures. She made the comment that a lot of the traditional food she had in Turkey weren’t “attractive” (soups, stews, etc.), and wouldn’t be the kind of thing that would be posted on a social media site like Instagram. Since IG is a very visual website of course there are value systems embedded into how it functions. What is considered visually appealing usually depends on whatever is trending, and more often than not that is based on Western aesthetics. This relates to what Sherry Turkle says about how social media redefines relationships and exacerbates isolation. Food is something that can affirm cultural identity and become a way to find cultural affinity, so it is potentially problematic if all the food we see is based on these very biased ideas of “healthy foods.”
In Turkle’s paper, she discusses an experiment at MIT where children interacted with a humanoid robot named Cog. The children were asked to help Cog with a broken arm and were found to empathize with the robot. Even after the researchers explained to the children how Cog works, revealing its inner machinery and code, the children still displayed empathy in their interactions with the robot. Turkle concludes that the children’s empathy is not merely due to their ignorance. Instead, she suggests that humans didn’t evolve to understand non-living yet conscious actors, and therefore can empathize with robots.
I’m not convinced this observation has serious implications with how adults interact with robots. For one, children have a high degree of imagination, and even from an early age are exposed to Western culture’s ideas of a robot and how we should interact with them. Without expanding the study to children from vastly different cultural backgrounds, I’m not sure we can conclude these children’s behavior is a result of human evolution. Moreover, I would have to read more about the details of the study to see if the children truly understood they were interacting with a non-sentient machine even after the researchers explanations, since making that cognitive jump seems like it may be difficult for some children.
First of all, I just like, really enjoy Sherry Turkle as an author, a speaker, and a scholar. The talk is upwards of a decade old, and still feels very true; not to get into like an oracle state of mind (both bc putting anything or anyone on a pedestal like that is not the healthiest, and also because she wasn’t framing everything in terms of prediction or knowing the future, her interpretation of her present just really stuck), but a piece on something that develops as quickly as technology which still has staying power that much later is the mark of not just a musing or a thought on the situation its framed on, but a truth that will follow well beyond the specifics of its context.
Like I’ve noted a couple other people are from reading these responses, I was really drawn to the quote “we remove ourselves from grief and from our revelry and we go into our phones”. Essentially, Turkle is describing how in our increasingly potent relationships to technology, we distance ourselves from ourselves. Never before has it been so easy and socially acceptable to participate in activity that puts our feelings totally on mute. People did plenty of things to get that effect but we called it alcoholism, or if not alcohol, a drug problem, or if something else entirely, an addiction broadly. We pathologized it, and more importantly, we took this pathology and tried to treat it away. In the digital age, we’ve only recently started to reckon that social media or the internet in general can be an addiction too, but even with this realization, the pathologizing has not really come: there’s light judgement associated with being a “screenager” in some circles, but for the most part, its regarded only cursorily as an individual problem, and is increasingly understood to be a social condition. We are a society addicted and a society numb. Though we didn’t read from Turkle’s Alone Together, this reminds me of the central idea there, that even though the internet makes us more connected than ever, we are also the loneliest we’ve ever been. This similarity makes sense, they come from the same thinker, but regardless, I am particularly inclined to associate this oxymoronic loneliness with the detachment from both grief and revelry. The numbness doesn’t just apply to emotions we don’t want to feel, we’re not out here throwing tarps over the sad and confusing and painful while allowing our positive emotions and capacities for self expression see the light, no, we are removed from both grief AND from revelry, and trading our ability to feel for this anomic pseudo-comfort.
I do think there were a few aspects that I didn’t agree with, such as the assertion that people using robots or other computational tools for companionship when no companionship is available is a direct attempt to replace human companionship. It is an attempt to simulate companionship to be sure, but I’m not so inclined to believe anyone involved thinks its truly the same thing. Especially in the context of nursing homes as it was presented, it appears to me as more of a sub-par stand in that’s still a little better than no stand in at all, especially considering old age tends to be even more lonely than the rest of life, as it is a phase of life where a lot of people you may have traditionally been in community with have passed, and the longer you last, the fewer people you have. In situations like this, I’m actually more inclined to understand companionship technology playing the role it does than in other situations, even though it is imperfect all the same.
Still, despite my misgivings with some small aspects of this piece, I ultimately resonated with it and with the scholarship it links to pretty strongly anyway. It packs a lot of meaning into 20 minutes of content, and I feel it would be an excellent way to explain the perils of our increasingly digital construction of community and relationship to someone who had not yet spent a ton of time thinking about these things.
Addendum: I watched and read the content last night and then wrote the majority of this today, and realize I might be conflating the contents of the Turkle chapter and the Turkle video into just the Turkle video. The nursing home companionship was actually a chapter thing, for example. However, the sentiment of my point still stands, and I think the video in particular would be a valuable for folks who don’t think about this stuff a ton and could be very eye opening, whereas for us the video is still very valuable, and since we already have context for stuff like the Eliza effect, is a really strong supplement to the discussions we’re already having.
I have conflicting thoughts about Turkle’s Ted Talk and article. For the most part, I agree with her sentiment that technology has facilitated a disconnect from our in-person social world, especially among younger people. Being able to control our environments and just leave social interactions when needed has been a net negative on society. But in her article she argues that a lot of concern should be directed towards the existence of new “relational artifacts”. I don’t think children’s relationships with virtual pets or robots is inherently problematic, and I don’t think it’s really a problem relational artifacts can’t reciprocate our feelings. I think there are very few cases where they should replace human relationships, but I can’t see huge differences between the way we treat most virtual companions and fictional people. We relate to characters in media and feel emotions towards them despite their nonexistence, just as a kid might feel emotions towards a Tamagotchi. For most, I feel these artifacts are more exercises in experiencing companionship with a non-sentient character than full emotional replacements for humans. As for the examples of nursing homes using robots for comfort: while I find it deeply uncomfortable, if it genuinely helps elderly people deal with loss and loneliness I’m not sure how much I can criticize it.
Both Turkle’s Ted Talk and the paper on Instagram and eating disorders exemplified the ways our relationships have changed with the advent of the internet. There is a direct correlation with our growing loneliness as a society and our ability to control our interactions in-person and online. The demanding tasks involved in interacting with people in real life cause us to escape to virtual spaces, which in turn negatively effect our self perceptions as we see idealized, unrealistic depictions of life. At the end of Turkle’s talk she argues that it’s still the “early days” of how we structure our relationship with the internet and information technology, and there’s still time to fundamentally change it. The talk was recorded in 2012, and I’m wondering if, 11 years later, that can still be argued.
What surprises me the most about Sherry Turkle’s TED Talk is how the message she delivered about loneliness in the time of technology back in 2012 still applies to modern society. It is incredible how much we depend on technology nowadays, and although we might be aware of it, it is extremely difficult to separate from it. Technology can satisfy our desires not to be bored and not to be alone, yet all of these are simple illusions, because, as Sherry Turkle states in her TED Talk, the more interactions with technology we have, the lonelier we become. I believe that even though the use of friend robots and personalized chatbots can help people in the short run regarding their emotional stability, in the end, it is more harmful. When Turkle mentions the conversation she had with a young adult about the capability of having a conversation and how he expected one day to be able to do it, it made me feel sad and powerless. It’s concerning to watch how some of the basic characteristics we define as human, such as conversation, are getting lost due to technology. On the other hand, Instagram use is linked to increased symptoms of orthorexia nervosa by Turner and Lefevre, showing how Instagram has an effect on the symptoms of orthorexia nervosa eating disorder, mainly due to its nature of being a social network that relies deeply on images and videos rather than text. I believe that the point they made can also apply to basically anything shown; there will indirectly be a comparison made between who you are and what you see on social media, and that can be really harmful, taking into account how much fake stuff exists on the internet.
I realized that my generation was most likely the last to grow up not completely surrounded by social media and advanced technology; we have experienced life before and after these applications and inventions emerged, so the issues that were discussed in the readings and the TED talk were not too surprising to me. However, it’s really interesting to dive deeper into the philosophical aspect of the aliveness and authenticity of companionships as well as reading about a research study on the effect of social media on our health.
I’m specifically interested in the discussion on connection versus communication in the TED talk. Social media and networking apps have done a great job of erasing geographical boundaries, easing communication and letting people keep in touch with minimal effort. However, apps like these have made it too easy to keep in touch and update ourselves on other people’s lives, creating the illusion that we are somewhat involved in their lives and maintaining good relationships. In fact, we are just maintaining a connection, which to me feels very shallow or feels more like a transactional relationship from which you can seek help whenever needed. Turkle brought up a good point that our interactions on those apps do not substitute a talk – maintaining those connections via features on social media do not aid in helping us understand each other better. For me, this sounds like another side effect of technology that we have to learn to deal with in our own way. We’re staying in touch with more long-distance friends and family members at the expense of the depth of the relationships, and we’re trading the value of our time spent with people in person for our convenience and peace of mind.
Sherry Turkle, in “Authenticity in the Age of Digital Companions,” explores our tendency to attribute life, thoughts, and emotions to even the simplest machines. This phenomenon is evident in our interactions with digital companions, from children forming bonds with Furbies to the elderly finding solace in them. Even for basic machines, people readily project their desires onto them. Engineers designing digital companions must consider this emotional connection, even for devices like Siri, Alexa, and ChatGPT.
Turkle’s decade-old TED talk remains remarkably relevant, as our dependence on digital devices continues to grow. The discomfort of being alone and the selective interest in others she discusses resonate with our current behavior. This influence of technology on our lives, even from an early age, is disconcerting. While our generation experienced a somewhat technology-free adolescence, we are not immune to the social changes brought about by technology’s expansion. Despite our constant connectivity, we are more isolated and anxious, making it challenging to reach out and seize the resources available to us.
I’m sure that everyone my age has heard that social media can cause psychological harm over time. The eating disorders mention in one of the readings today is only a small piece, but as an image focused social media, it is unsurprising that Instagram was one of the worst culprits for causing eating disorders. We present the best image of ourselves on these curated sites and display a version of ourselves that is so curated that we can end up hating ourselves when we make comparisons. It’s an inauthentic connection of perfection. Just as the TedTalk mentioned, we use this indirect connection from texting to otherwise to display only a curated well thought out version of ourselves. I can feel uncomfortable being too open around people. Afraid of my own flaws and slip ups. I can see how the researcher worried about people’s connection to inanimate friends gaining unprecedented trust. I personally wouldn’t feel the need to hold back when interacting with a machine because I know my flaws wouldn’t ruin a relationship. Any mistake I make would be mine to reflect on and not a friend lost. I also think though that too much interaction this way could make me less confident to confide in my friends. The feeling to share certain ideas would have to some extent been filled, but it wouldn’t have been through my friends. This in a lot of sense perpetuates a feeling of not being understood and alone even as you are more comfortable to share with the robot. It is a connection with much less stakes and a hollow reward.
The ON reading reminded me of high school, in which I saw the effects of social media on people’s eating habits pretty clearly; then, content also seemed to follow what we discussed previously with your “feed” or recommendations introducing more and more extreme content. It was interesting because even if someone interacted only with a vlog of someone famous on social media, they would eventually get recommended videos posted by others analyzing the eating and exercise habits of that person. This content seemed to contain the notion that if you eat like x you’ll get the “desirable” outcome of y, as if everyone were under the same circumstances; even though people may not necessarily have believed completely in this idea of there being an ideal diet or body, having outcomes differing from those pushed forth by the diet/exercise content often led to people subconsciously eating much less to get the same result. And with people’s recommendations growing to be more extreme, they were really only exposed to content that enforced this idea.
The TED talk serves as a potent reminder of the ethical and human considerations involved in technology development and usage. While technological advancements, including mobile devices and online platforms, have revolutionized communication and connectivity, they have also inadvertently influenced human behaviors, interactions, and our self-identity. This presents a dilemma: while we create technologies to enhance human life, they should not compromise fundamental human experiences, such as genuine conversations and the capacity for solitude and reflection. As a computer scientist, it’s essential to appreciate and remain sensitive to the human side of technology. The goal should be to develop technologies that facilitate, not hamper, human connections and well-being. The Instagram study illuminates fascinating aspects regarding the influence of social media platforms. One of them is the algorithm. Social media platforms like Instagram employ sophisticated algorithms to curate content for users based on their preferences and interactions. These algorithms play a significant role in reinforcing users’ beliefs and interests, leading to the ‘echo chamber’ effect. Understanding and potentially mitigating these effects may be crucial for fostering a more diverse and balanced online environment, preventing the overemphasis on certain health trends or behaviors.
Technology is having such a strong impact on society that we see the different effects it has on people. The first thing I want to talk about is the study on orthorexia nervosa. We notice that social media has such a strong influence on children who grew up with social media. They start to look at the different posts of influential people and become influenced by how they could become like them. These influences lead them to believe in certain news and a different mindset than they previously had. The different posts that these people encounter are very influential in their development and can affect the way that they think about everything. I feel like this is honestly a negative approach to how people should perceive social media, but it is also a complicated way of figuring out how to deal with this, as people will always be influenced by what they like to see and what they want to see in themselves. This also leads me to the other reading about the idea of authenticity in technology. We notice that people enjoy talking with bots and toys such as Tamagotchi, where they feel like they are being acknowledged and being able to do whatever they want to do. However, the reading mentions how there is no authenticity to the technology they are interacting with, but just the idea of being acknowledged as well as having a sense of comfort with these bots that are “understanding” of them. This lack of authenticity seems to be a problem as people can be reliant on such products with no sense of true feelings leading them to have a lack of certain aspects for society. It is hard not to interact with these products, but I also believe that it is beneficial to be able to understand that there is no authenticity with these products and doing it for fun, or that in the future we will be able to create such products that would be able to be supportive and have a more authentic feeling to them. In regards to social media, I find it very difficult to figure out a solution as they have now been integrated into our daily lives. The main problem I believe is the issue with social media is how people interact with the app as well as how they are easily influenced and convinced by the posts they see. This is very much a personal issue, where their insecurities let it get the best of them. I feel like social media should try to enforce less visual and what to do kind of posts and more just what their day was like or the pictures they took on that day.
It seems to me that any analysis of the difference between human-human and human-robot relationships would be incomplete without a consideration of the evolution of those relationships. Turkle points out many ways in which the line in the sand between machines and living things has progressively eroded over time. It is true that there are now robots which are capable of mimicking many aspects of human interactions which were once considered exclusive to living things: moving, speaking, showing facial expressions, learning, demonstrating caring, etc. For me, the difference between my relationships with robots and humans becomes blatantly obvious as time goes on. Relationships with humans evolve in a particular way which robots cannot yet replicate, and I believe – among other things – it has much to do with the long, complicated, independent history that informs other people’s inner worlds. I like one of Richard’s quotes from the reading: “But you know in the end, that person who dragged me by my tubes had a story. I could find out about it.” I may eat my words, but I believe machines are a long way off from replicating the degree of complexity that underlies the history and inner world of every human.
Like others have said, it’s eerie to be hearing Turkle’s concerns only a couple of years on from the creation of modern smartphones. In the decade since, technology has improved dramatically. The platforms that connect us have grown larger, more accessible, and faster, and now people from all corners of the world can easily tap into the stream of connectedness. Technology has improved, but I don’t think any of Turkle’s concerns have. I think communication is so easy now that it is almost unacceptable, unusual, and damaging to not be constantly engaging in it.
I remember discussing the dynamic of texting and how much our dynamic of written communication changed. You don’t have to go too far back in time to reach a point where letters were our primary form of communication, which were not only longer, but demanded far less of our attention. You didn’t really know a letter got where it was going until the person you wrote it to responded. Now, when we send someone else a message, we know for a fact if it was delivered or not, and even if they read it. We receive immediate feedback that someone has our message, and expect immediate responses and feel slighted if they aren’t. Even when you explain your views on this kind of communication directly, it doesn’t change the standards of society.
I truly enjoyed the readings and TedTalk for class today. To me, it felt like a discussion switch from our usual focus on physical harm and evident fallacies in algorithms and other tech. Today, our readings focused on something much harder to measure and evaluate, the mental effects that social media and technology have on us. It is no secret to anyone these days that we are in a global mental health crisis and that social media has something to do with it. However, the more I think about it, the less there is being done to control social media platforms and technology-induced mental damage. We are each aware of the perfect and ideal images social media like Instagram are creating and also understand that our addiction to the “perfect” is what keeps us coming back. As Turkle states in her TedTalk, we can control our realities and identities on social media, so why would stray to reality where we can not? Unfortunately, I am not sure what answer to these addictions that exist. My parents who spent nearly 40 years off social media are now on it, and kids are starting off on social media way before I even knew it existed. The ability of social media to augment our reality and be the always accessible, always fresh companion is incredibly dangerous. Turkle said many things that resonated with me, but none more so than “Have we lost faith that we will be there for each other?” hit a different cord. I am not entirely there yet, but I know that if in some way I had never downloaded social media, my trust and faith in people would certainly be higher.
The reading for this week sets aside how the algorithm would affect people, and instead focuses on the negative impact of social media and technology on people in general. In Sherry Turkle’s TED talk, she described how technology would make people disconnected. The young generation is afraid of talking face to face and even on the phone; rather, they prefer to text and email since they get the chance to edit what they want to say and only show people the sides that they want to show to others. Last semester, we also discussed that in an anthropology class, due to the immediate-response style, the phone call has been given the meaning of emergency. And if it is not emergent, people tend to text others since it seems more polite (to show the other side of themselves that they want to be). The article about Instagram use being linked to increased symptoms of orthorexia nervosa also surprised me in the beginning, but that makes sense after reading the paper. The tags and the cybercommunity create the cybersocial anxiety which increase the orthorexia nervosa.
I feel like this kind of subject always spurs some sort of reaction in me to become incredibly pessimistic toward tech. With more and more information about the harm that social media and other manifestations of technology in our lives I feel as though I’ve grown more and more jaded towards the role that tech can play. As a kid, when I played far more video games and watched more TV, technology was my knight in shining armor and it excited me infinitely. Nowadays it’s something completely different. I appreciated the optimistic bits that Sherry Turkle dropped in the talk about still being excited about technology and acknowledging the positive role it could play in our lives if directed properly. Through that lense tech is something that is actually very intellectually engaging, though this is also an inherently interdisciplinary lens. Tech which actually helps with social issues is not something that can be created by people who do not understand those social issues fully. The misunderstanding of these social issues by those that are guiding the tech right now is evident in the attempt to fill the gaps in which we are social vulnerable, rather than supporting the exploration of said social vulnerabilities.