Since her first book The Second Self (1984) which was published almost 40 years ago, Sherry Turkle has been focused on studying our relationship with technology and the way it affects us. In Alone Together (2017), the American sociologist and psychologist pushes the research further by exploring how technology has altered the way we communicate with each other.

The book divided in two halves demonstrates that no matter how connected we think we are, loneliness seems to be inevitable. However, Turkle seems to be hopeful for our future as she says that ‘there is time to make the corrections’ (p.294). She wrote Alone Together (2017) as a cautionary tale for the next generations to come. But the reviews do not all agree with this statement. Indeed, Turkle’s book (2017) has been as praised as it has been criticized. In order to reflect on the book in an unbiased manner, I will present both point of views.

In his review for Wired, American author Jonah Lehrer presents Turkle’s work in a less credible light by pointing out how Alone Together (2017) contradicts statements she previously ‘embraced’ (Lehrer, 2011). He also believes that her book could have been split up into two alternative publications and is critical of the way Turkle ‘abruptly’ transitions between the two main themes she discusses. A further critique is directed at the ethnographic work which neglects to answer the important questions. Indeed, Lehrer (2011) blames Turkle for not addressing why we are unable to detach ourselves from the online world. Finally, Lehrer (2011) ends his review with the affirmation that Alone Together (2017) is nothing but a ‘one-sided book’.

A similar review was also published online by William Kist, a professor of curriculum studies at Kent State University. Like Lehrer (2011), he thinks that Turkle has become too critical and pessimistic towards technology in comparison to her previous work, to the extent that Alone Together (2017) could have been written by someone else like ‘Turkle’s evil Luddite twin’. Additionally, he disapproves of Turkle regrouping us all as a ‘nation of Goldilockses’ and describes her book as outdated, ‘one-sided’, bland and poorly constructed.

But Alone Together (2017) has not only received criticisms, it has also been praised by multiple reviews. In his journal article, Jacob W. Shatzer (2011) emphasizes how Turkle is a perceptive scholar and has the ability to outline intriguing and ‘thought-provoking’ (p.3) issues around technological advancement and its consequences. Furthermore, Shatzer (2011) advocates that the book is relevant for a large demographic and easy enough for anybody to read. On top of that, Raphael Behr, columnist at the Guardian, considers Turkle’s work to be an exceptional addition to the former ‘cyber-sceptic literature’. He disagrees with Kist (2011) and states that ‘Turkle is not a luddite’. To his mind, she just wants to initiate conversation and open people eyes to the reality that we live in today.

While the aforementioned authors may think a certain way, I believe that Alone Together (2017) written by Sherry Turkle was an enlightening book. While reading it, I could relate to numerous situations and realized that I was even sometimes guilty of bad habits like texting at the table. I think that it is a must-read (at least once) and I strongly recommend it to any media students.

References:

Behr, R. (2011, January 30). Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other by Sherry Turkle — review. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jan/30/alone-together-sherry-turkle-review

Kist, W. (2011, January 16). Sherry Turkle’s ‘Alone Together’ critiques the rage for social networking [Review of the book Alone together: why we expect more from technology and less from each other, by S.Turkle] Retrieved from https://www.cleveland.com/books/2011/01/sherry_turkles_alone_together.html

Lehrer, J. (2011, January 25). Alone Together? [Review of the book Alone together: why we expect more from technology and less from each other, by S.Turkle] Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2011/01/alone-together/

Shatzer, J. W. (2011). Review Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (New York: Basic, 2011). 360 pp. Journal of Technology, Theology, and Religion, 2, 1–3. Retrieved from http://www.techandreligion.com/Resources/Turkle review.pdf

Turkle, S. (2017). Alone together: why we expect more from technology and less from each other. New York: Basic Books.

Dear Readers:Will you be adding Alone Together (2017) to your reading list?

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Lights. Camera. Action.

We are the actors of our own lives and as Turkle puts it in her talk at the 2011 Chicago Humanities Festival, ‘we live a life of performance’ (19:40).Everyday, in the real world, we make decisions based on the situations we are in, the people we encounter or simply the emotions we are experiencing. But what about the virtual world? Are we the same person online as well as offline? When it comes to our online persona, we have the option of choosing to be anything or anybody we want to be. We can conceal our true selves and explore other parts of our identity, or even become a totally different person. The possibilities are endless.

In Alone Together (2017), Turkle illustrates how the Internet plays a crucial role in the exploration of our identities. Indeed, whether it is on social media, through blogs, or even in virtual games, we can generate various versions of ourselves in just a few clicks. As sociologist Ervin Goffman puts it in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1956), we exhibit ‘a series of masks’ (p.150) because we are preoccupied by what others may think of us. An appropriate and contemporary example that highlights Goffman’s discussion of ‘front stage’ and ‘backstage’ behaviour is the video below. It was posted in 2017 by the Youtube channel DitchTheLabel, which also happens to be one of the largest UK anti-bullying charities. As its name suggests, the channel was created to open people’s eyes on any prejudices.

In this clip, the social media Instagram, also known as the most detrimental for our mental health (RSPH & YHM, 2017), is the focus. By exposing the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of Instagram posts, DitchTheLabel hopes to communicate the message that not everything you see on social media is as it seems. It is what people want you to see. As Phoebe Grout explained on the Learn forum, it is a ‘more filtered and regulated performance of the true self’. Nonetheless, there are cases where the performance goes too far. For instance, in their post, Limeade touches on the problems with online deception. Through the use of Catfish: The Show, Limeade demonstrates how people can easily steal another person’s identity and thus pretend to be someone they are not.

But social media is not the only place where one can alter their identity. In Turkle’s words (2017) ‘whenever one has time to write, edit, and delete, there is room for performance’ (p.180). Another drastic way of ‘reinventing ourselves’ (Turkle, 2017, p.12) is through virtual worlds and most specifically with avatars. Through his book Alter Ego (2007), British photographer Robbie Cooper illustrate how avatars are like our second selves but a usually more enhanced version. For three years, Cooper travelled all around the globe and captured pictures of people alongside their avatar.

His artistic work draws attention to the positive side of virtual identities such as being able to escape reality and forget about a disability for a few hours. On the other hand, Turkle looks at the negative aspects of the online world and points out that by spending too much time connected, we may lose ourselves and jeopardize our relations with the real world.

But what about the connections gained or even preserved thanks to the virtual world? Would we be more connected with one another in real life if our access to the web was limited?

References:

Chicago Humanities Festival (2011, November 29). Sherry Turkle: Alone Together. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHn6jVxsB5U

Goffman, E. (1956). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. American Sociological Review, 21(5), 631. doi: 10.2307/2089106

National Science and Media Museum. (2010, March 12). ROBBIE COOPER: ‘IMMERSION’ AND ‘ALTER EGO’ [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/robbie-cooper-immersion-alter-ego/

Phoebe Grout (2019, November 27). Re: Goffman’s presentation of self [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://learn.lboro.ac.uk/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=189841

Royal Society For Public Health & Young Health Movement (2017). Status of Mind: Social media and young people’s mental health. Retrieved from https://www.rsph.org.uk/uploads/assets/uploaded/d125b27c-0b62-41c5-a2c0155a8887cd01.pdf [accessed 2 January 2020]

Turkle, S. (2017). Alone together: why we expect more from technology and less from each other. New York: Basic Books.

Next blog post: A reflection upon Sherry Turkle’s cautionary tale

‘We expect more from technology and less from each other’ (Turkle, 2017)

In an age of peak connectivity, we have never been more alone. Whether it is on our phones, through our tablets or using our computers, we would rather talk to each other from a screen than look into each other’s eyes. We fear rejection and do not like to commit. We want something we cannot have and as a result we decided to build ourselves the ‘perfect’ companions.

In the first half of her book Alone Together (2017), Turkle focuses on describing what she calls ‘the robotic moment’. It started because of our need for companionship and struggle to connect with one another. This robotic moment, as its name suggests, represents the time we finally let robots enter our lives and share our intimacy. From friends, to entertainers or even lovers, it seems like there is nothing that those machines cannot do, especially when integrated with artificial intelligence.

But are they better than us ? If we refer to the answers given by some of the people Turkle interviewed for her book Alone Together, the answer is yes: ‘People disappoint, robots will not’ (Turkle, 2017, p.28). Those kind of thoughts are worrying for the author who fears technologies like sociable robots may hinder or even replace human connections. To my mind, she is right to be apprehensive. In the case of younger generations, growing up with devices has already become the new normal. Thus, becoming accustomed to the presence of robots could easily be seen as the next step. Nonetheless, it appears that we still have some time to go until they become socially accepted in our society. Indeed, based on a survey conducted by YouGov (2019) on ‘a sample of 2,041 British adults aged 18–55+’, more than the majority are not thrilled at the idea of becoming friends, having a romantic relationship, or even working with robots.

However, those results do not take away the fact that we are and have always been fascinated by robots and AI. Before reading Alone Together, I could not understand the appeal of toys like Furby. I used to find them truly annoying because of the constant noises they would make. But the reason behind the popularity of ‘sociable robots’ (Breazeal, 2013) like Furby is that we anthropomorphize them. This complex verb simply means that we ‘attribute human characteristics to inanimate objects’ (Duffy, 2013). Those mimics can range from eye contact to hand gestures and so forth.

Nevertheless, our fascination does not stop there. It can also be seen in multiple television shows like Futurama (1999) or even movies such as Ex Machina (2015). In this British science fiction movie, the focus is set on the humanoid robot Ava. Not only does ‘she’ look like a woman, ‘she’ can also ‘think’ like one. Indeed, Ava passed the Turing Test (1950) which determines whether a robot could deceive a human into believing that it is more than a machine.<Spoiler alert> In Ex Machina, a human becomes attracted to Ava and helps her escape. But as Turkle discusses in Alone Together (2017), ‘enchantment comes with a price’(p.283) and the human is left behind by Ava as she finally is given the opportunity to enter society.

Despite this movie being science fiction, the technological advancements seen in today’s society make it seem more real than fictitious. Indeed, in their blog post, Lonely Turtle (2019) introduces the example of Sophia, a humanoid robot who looks like Ava and has been ‘granted citizenship’. Is a future with robots closer than we think ?

It would appear so! Indeed, throughout the last couple of years, other types of robots have been at the center of attention and debates: sexbots. In an interview for The Guardian, David Levy, author of the book Love and Sex with robots (2007), spoke out on his belief that robots could benefit our relationships and help with ‘intimacy’ (Levy, 2015) problems. In opposition, Kathleen Richardson, director of the Campaign against Sex Robots (2015), insists that Levy is wrong and that those robots will ‘reduce human empathy’. Finally, Turkle supports Richardson’s argument by defining a relationship between a human and a robot as ‘a forbidden experiment’ (2017, p.291).

In my opinion, no matter what lies ahead, robots will never truly replace humans.

References:

Breazeal, C. (2003). Toward sociable robots. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 42(3–4), 167–175. doi: 10.1016/s0921–8890(02)00373–1

Campaign Against Sex Robots (2015). About. Retrieved from https://campaignagainstsexrobots.org/about/

Duffy, B. R. (2003). Anthropomorphism and the social robot. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 42(3–4), 177–190. doi: 10.1016/s0921–8890(02)00374–3

Lonely Turtle (2019, December 9). Meet Sophia- The World’s Smartest Robot [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@lonelyturtle/meet-sophia-the-worlds-smartest-robot-120de8c0d3ca

McDonald, A., Reich, A. (Producers) & Garland, A. (Director). (2015). Ex Machina [Motion picture]. United Kingdom. Universal Pictures

Turing, A. M. (1950). I. — Computing Machinery And Intelligence. Mind, LIX(236), 433–460. doi: 10.1093/mind/lix.236.433

Turkle, S. (2017). Alone together: why we expect more from technology and less from each other. New York: Basic Books.

YouGov. (2018). Internal Robots & You [Data set]. Retrived from https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/0pta4dnee1/YG-Archive-RobotsAndYouInternal-220818.pdf

Wiseman, E. (2015, December 13). Sex, love and robots: is this the end of intimacy? The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/13/sex-love-and-robots-the-end-of-intimacy

Dear readers: Do you agree my final statement? Do you also believe that robots will never truly replace humans ?

Next blog post: Online Self vs. Offline Self — Who is the REAL you?

Have we become slaves to the technologies we created?

This is one of the few thoughts that resonated with me as I was reading Turkle’s book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (2017). Divided in two distinct parts, the publication explores how technology is altering the way we communicate.

As we have just entered a new decade, I thought that it would be relevant to reflect on the previous one which has just ended. Indeed, within the last 10 years, our society has witnessed the emergence of new technologies and been subjected to numerous changes in the way we live, think and interact with one another. As highlighted by an Ofcom report published in 2018, people seem to be more connected than ever. For instance, in the UK, the proportion of smartphone owners grew overall by 61%; from a mere 17% in 2008 to an eye-watering 78% in 2018.

But with this increased connectivity comes certain drawbacks, or at least this is what Turkle believes. In her book Alone Together (2017), she expresses her concerns towards our technological dependency and supports the idea that ‘technology ties us up as much as it disconnects us’ (p.13). In his 2014 viral video which as of today has over 61 million views, the poet and filmmaker Gary Turk highlights this paradox presented by Turkle. The short film shows us what we are missing out on as we are too focused on our devices and conveys the message of ‘looking up’.

By combining rimes and powerful imagery, Turk draws attention to our vulnerabilities and how ‘this media we call social, is anything but social’ (Turks, 2014, 0:22). Yet, we seem to prefer to connect with our technologies more than with each other. More shockingly, a 2011 research published in the New York Times determined that we are not addicted to our phones, we are in love with them! Indeed, after exposing 16 participants between the age of 18 to 25 years old to audio and video of a vibrating iPhone, the researchers noticed that the part of the brain that glowed was the one associated with ‘love and compassion’ (Lindstrom, 2011) … the same one that we use for when we are in the presence of a loved one.

Through her empirical research, Turkle (2017) made the realisation that people were nothing without their phones. One of the participants she interviewed even described how she felt ‘naked’ (Turkle, 2017, p.152) and disconnected. Nowadays, our devices have become omnipresent and we have grown used to being constantly connected.

In his book iDisorder (2013), Rosen who just like Turkle is not anti-technology but cautious about its future, observed how ‘our devices have become a transparent part of the world’ (p.9). He also uses a metaphor to insist on how people are glued to their phones to the point that it almost looks like they are eating ‘fish with a side of smartphone’ (p.1). In my experience, this is nothing but accurate. When I eat out with friends, we even have to take precautions and ask everybody present to put their phones in the middle of the table with the others, only to be certain to have face-to-face conversations.

In spite of that, I do believe that Turkle mainly focuses on the negative aspects of connectivity. Unlike, Zulie Zane, who presents a different opinion in her blog post (2018) and supports the idea that technology brings us closer while not negatively impacting our relationships with one another.

We are part of a culture of distraction that is scared at the idea of being alone. We think we are connected with each other, but are we?

References:

Lindstrom, M. (2011, September 11). You Love Your iPhone. Literally. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/opinion/you-love-your-iphone-literally.html

Ofcom. (2018). Communications market report. Retrieved from https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/features-and-news/decade-of-digital-dependency [accessed 15 December 2019]

Rosen, L. D. P. (2013). Idisorder — understanding our obsession with technology and overcoming its. Palgrave Macmillan.

Turk, G. (2014, April 25). Look Up | Gary Turk — Official video[Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY

Turkle, S. (2017). Alone together: why we expect more from technology and less from each other. New York: Basic Books.

Zane, Z. (2018, December 4). Here’s How Technology Connects Us [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://medium.com/the-ascent/heres-how-technology-connects-us-10bc02124742

Dear readers: What do you foresee for this upcoming decade? Are you also guilty of being glued to your devices?

Next blog post: No-Risk Relationship: Are Robots Better than Humans?