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

relationships and to avoid the demand of real friendship.

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

Angela’s story start to become apparent and Nev starts to see through her façade. Turkle states something similar, “But we’re not so in comfortable. We are not so in control” (43). Turkle describes what happens to Angela: her control waned and she became very uncomfortable when Nev found out the truth behind her lies about her family and her life. The relationships formed online are one way, one of the parties involved has control of the relationship. Healthy human connections are a partnership, both people involved are in it together. Social media doesn’t facilitate these kind of relationships; the ones they create are shallow, and they lack the meaning of real relationships.
Turkle and the film also explore the idea that people can’t form meaningful online relationships because we are using personas so people can’t get to know the real us.

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,

they’re ok with these new shallow online relationships. Just as the film and Turkle’s Ted Talk describe this problematic way of thinking is brought about by social media.
In conclusion, both Turkle and the film Catfish describe how social media creates an environment that can foster surface level relationships that people mistake for a real relationship formed between real people in real life through online personas and the illusion of control. Social media can help us maintain meaningful connections but it cannot form them on its own. People don’t realize that if you use social media you can use it to your advantage, but without thinking it can fool you. The film and Turkle urge people to take a step back and see social media as it is: a tool. A tool that can be used to enhance real life not to replace it.