Can’t keep our hands off the devices in our pockets
Day 3 of TED2012.
11.53am:
Sherry Turkle up now with a profoundly interesting but disturbing talk. She’s one of the most influential theorists of the online world, whose 1996 book Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet put her onto the cover of Wired magazine.
“I’m still excited about technology,” she says. “But my new book isn’t going to put me on the cover of Wired magazine.”
The devices in our pockets, she says, are removing us from our own lives. Are impacting upon our most meaningful relationships. And actually changing who we are.
As a psychologist, she studies people’s relationships with technology, how people will now text in board meetings, in classrooms, while having breakfast with their children. “Even at funerals, I’ve studied people texting. They are taking themselves out of their grief and into their phones.”
“Human relationships are rich and they’re messy and they’re demanding. And we clean them up with technology. We sacrifice conversation for mere connection.”
Technology appeals to us where we’re most vulnerable, says Turkle. “It gives us the illusion of companionship without the means of friendship.
“It feeds the fantasy that we will always be heard, and we will never be alone.”
Couldn’t agree more. Ever had a lover text over your shoulder whilst in a clinch? I haven’t. Yet.