Comparing Film Catfish And Sherry Turkle's Ted Talk

Social Media can be a great tool, but can also be our worst enemy. The documentary film Catfish and Sherry Turkle’s Ted Talk explore the issues associated with social media and how it affects us. They both describe social media as a tool that can be a problem if used without real life in mind. The film and Turkle's Ted Talk show us how social media tricks us into thinking that our online relationships are as or more meaningful than real life relationships using personas and the illusion of control. It's easy for people to brush it off and say it doesn't happen to them, but this issue associated with social media can happen to anyone who uses social media in any capacity. The film and Turkle use the idea that people use technology to control

Turkle describes people using technology to form relationships, and find companionship but only to find that these relationships are not real. Turkle states, “we’re designing technologies that will give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. We turn to technology to help us feel connected in ways we can comfortably control” (43). Turkle tells us that people choose social media relationships over real relationships because it’s easier than the latter. We don’t feel comfortable when we are speaking to people in real life. Just as Turkle said; we are vulnerable (43). In the film, Angela does exactly what Turkle says we do. She uses Facebook to befriend Nev because she can use it to control the interaction between him and herself. Without the control derived from social media Angela would have had a difficult time forming a relationship with Nev because she was very vulnerable. Angela lacked self-confidence so she turned to social media rather than find companionship in real life. However, throughout the film holes in

During the Ted Talk Turkle brings up the question Stephen Colbert asked, “Don’t all those little tweets, don’t all those little sips of communication, add up to one big gulp of conversation?” (42). Turkle responds with “no”. People can’t get know someone on a deep level using texts alone. The film takes this to the next level: Nev can’t get to know Angela for who she really is because they never have a real conversation and Angela communicates with him using her many personas. Even when Nev went to her house they still couldn’t have a real conversation because Angela was still withholding information from him and wouldn’t drop her charade. Angela’s personas were her way to perfect herself online; she used them to fool Nev into forming a pseudo-relationship with one of her personas and by extension her. The second-hand relationship she had with Nev had an illusion of meaning. But through social media their relationship had all the meaning and passion she needed. Turkle capsulizes this with this, “We expect more from technology and less from each other” (43). Just as Turkle say, social media makes us want less from others. A relationship where both parties know nothing about the real person behind the screen is not a relationship or at least has little to no meaning. And people are fine with this new status quo,