Sherry Turkle: Connected, But Alone - Essay Example

According to her, this transformation has led to the loss of genuine real-life conversation converting people into robot-like machines. She asserts that there are features of real conversation that can never be replaced by electronic communication. These features are what connect people as social beings. It is through real conversation that one can express their real emotions and people can be able to express their deep concerns. It is a sad state that these new technologies are converting people into asocial beings. Teenagers subscribe to unlimited texts and are always on the phone even when having real conversations with people around them. It is not possible to concentrate on one’s phone and at the same time maintain eye contact with the person one is conversing with. This passes as a rude kind of behavior making the other person feel less appreciated and has ruined our relationship with people around us (Turkle 2013). It is thus possible to stay connected with other people through texts, tweets, FaceBook but at the same time be alienated from people around us.

It follows that during the conversation, no one really listens to the other causing a disconnection. What is even scarier is the fact that people do not even get time to be alone. We are always bombarded by emails, texts, or even tweets during working hours, during our free time, and even at night. The exchange of information never stops. This then implies that people never really get time to reflect on their own life and meditate. It has become even more difficult for people to create their own identity as our actions are shaped by these electronic means of communication (Turkle 2013). It is feared that in the end, we will have a world full of people with identical behavior and way of thinking and this blocks creativity and development in general. From this talk, it can be seen that in the near future, people will not be able to make simple personal real-life conversations and this will have unimaginable consequences on our social structure. Staying connected has had its advantages in ensuring immediacy of information which has promoted businesses and other operations.