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Cell phones changing society socially
Phones effect on society
Cell phones changing society socially
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In order for a prosperous and affluent society to strive, a conversation is garnished for better communication of thoughts, abilities, and intimate one-on-one connections. Yet, what stops that very idea from achievement is the very thing in our pocket or hands every day and night: our phones. Sherry Turkle explores this phenomenon in her essay, The Flight from Conversation, as she highlights the problems that our phones inherit and how much it affects not only yourselves but a whole generation that can easily access phones. Turkle is able to comment on a topic that most people know about but is afraid or lazy to tackle, which is what makes her essay unique and substantial enough to convince her readers of her plea to lessen our time on our …show more content…
She is able to convey her point through her warning and judgemental tone. She utilizes words and phrases such as “We have sacrificed conversation for mere connection” (Turkle) and “But it’s a process in which we shortchange ourselves. Worse, it seems that over time we stop caring, we forget that there is a difference” (Turkle). She is telling her audience the very thing that we have given up, our intimate interactions, our communication skills, and most importantly, our own ability to converse with ourselves. Even though these may be small, tiny phrases, a more focused reader would find the minute secrets of the phrases. The reader can feel what she wants you to feel: remorse for yourself. Also, she defines connection in a different way than originally known as. Connection, in her point of view, is connecting through the internet, an alternate reality that only shows our false selves and our fake lives. At first glance, a reader can pass by this detail, though with a closer eye, a connection is nothing like a conversation. A conversation through her eyes is real communication, personal and profound patience between two people or a group, as it unravels like a rose. A reader who can identify the difference can fully understand what she wants you to feel. She goes even further to compare the two words, …show more content…
Sherry Turkle is a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and teaches Social Studies of Science. She also appears on television to commentate on media and has written many books. Most surprisingly, this very essay, The Flight from Conversation, appeared in the famously known papers of the New York Times in 2012. Just from the short biography given about Turkle, the reader can automatically trust what Turkle has to say on the subject, as she has been studying this topic for many years and is obviously intelligent enough to have her work reprinted. In paragraph three, she creates trust with her audience as she states “Over the past fifteen years, I’ve studied technologies of mobile connection... I’ve learned that the little devices most of us carry around are so powerful that they change not only what we do, but also who we are” (Turkle). She makes it extremely evident that she knows what she is talking about just by simply stating how long she has been working in this field, and her reasoning is no exception. Her reasoning behind everything exemplifies her deep understanding of the way phones take control of our lives as she not only considers why we love our phones but also how we can eventually cure this addiction. Even though she uses phrases such as “I believe” and
Instead of focusing on the conversations at hand, people are distracted by the conversations on their phones. Because of this divide in attention, conversations are not as deep and meaningful as they were before smartphones ‘hijacked’ our mind.
Let’s Talk” to the New York Times, September 26th, 2015. In her article, she focuses, on how technology, for the most part, our smartphones, have impacted our interactions with one another. Also, the article
In the essay “Our Cell Phones, Our Selves” written by Christine Rosen, the author presents a brief history on how cell phones were introduced into society and how this artifact changed people’s interactions in the physical space. Rosen describes the first cell phone that appeared in 1983 as “hardly elegant,” big and expensive (458). Cell phones at that time were mainly used by important and affluent people. However, seven years later, cell phones became smaller and affordable provoking a big change in society. This big technological advance did not only affect the United States, but the entire world.
In the world today, people are constantly surrounded by technology. At any given moment, we can connect to others around the world through our phones, computers, tablets, and even our watches. With so many connections to the outside world, one would think we have gained more insight into having better relationships with the people that matter the most. Despite these connections, people are more distant to one another than ever. In the article, “Stop Googling. Let’s Talk," author Sherry Turkle details her findings on how people have stopped having real conversations and argues the loss of empathy and solitude are due to today’s technology. Turkle details compelling discoveries on how technology has changed relationships in “Stop Googling. Let’s Talk,” and her credibility is apparent through years of research and the persuasive evidence that supports her claims.
Sherry Turkle’s article in The New York Times “The Flight From Conversation”, she disputes that we need to put down the technology and rehabilitate our ability to converse with other human beings because we are replacing deep relationships with actual people for casual encounters on technology. Turkle tries to convince young and middle age individuals who are so enthralled by the technology that they are losing the ability to communicate in a public setting. Sherry Turkle unsuccessfully persuades her audience to put down the technology and engage with others in public through her strong logos appeal that overpowers her weak logos and doesn’t reliably represent herself and her research.
Amy Gahran, a media consultant exploring communication in the technology era, writes about how cell phones are significant. She feels that cell phones have changed our lives by providing “…vital services and human connections…offer new hope, even through simple broadcast text messages” (Gahran). Gahran is insisting that cell phones allow us to learn news quickly, connect with safety, and can even fight crime through video recordings (Gahran). In addition, she feels that the overall benefits of owning a cell phone outweigh any negatives. This somewhat challenges the ideas presented by Rosen because it points out more benefits of cell phones. In “Our Cell Phones, Ourselves” Rosen mentions that although cell phones indeed connect us with safety, they can often lead to a sense of paranoia. To expand, she writes that parents who give children a cell phone for security purposes, develop a paranoid sense of their community and lose trust in “social institutions” (Rosen). In making this comment, Rosen argues that although cell phones may be beneficial, they can change the way we view our world. Without a cell phone, many individuals feel vulnerable, as if their phone protects them from all possible dangers that they may encounter. In fact, a Rutgers University professor challenged his students to power off their phones for 48 hours and report back with their experience (Rosen). Many felt almost lost without it and one young women described the feeling “…like I was going to get raped if I didn’t have my cell phone in my hand” (Rosen). In reality, having a cell phone will not save a person’s life in all situations. Although many, including Gahran, feel a phone is a vital tool, it has changed how we feel about the world around us and how vulnerable we feel without a phone in
Although, her constant fail to back up her claims continues to hurt her overall credibility and persuasion tactics. Another example of this would be, “A 16-year-old boy who relies on texting for almost everything says almost wistfully, ““Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I’d like to learn how to have a conversation”” (Turkle pg. 2). This quote is very relevant and could have strongly supported Turkle’s main claim but, she leaves out some very crucial information. For example, my first thoughts were, “who is this 16-year-old boy? Why should we as an audience find this teenager to be a credible source? And why does what this one boy say even need to be taken seriously?” If Turkle would have first stated something along the lines of, “95% of 12-to-17-year-old in Britain have a mobile phone and 87 percent of those have smartphones” (Butler pg. 2). And then later decided to use this quote from this unknown 16-year-old boy the quote would have seemed much more relevant and given some credibility to her and the argument as well. This is true because it would have helped Turkle’s overall argument by showing a statistical number of the children who are being effected by this technology phenomenon and why it is important to try and prevent any further damage to these social
In this book Sherry Turkle studies something she thinks we as a people are losing sight of, which is face to face conversation. She explains in her book why she believes this is so important, and the consequences we will face if we continue to ignore this growing problem. Her argument about conversation stems from talking to people, face-to-face, In which she finds many of whom have difficulty doing so. Turkle Believes this is mainly because of digital technology. In today’s world people are so glued to their phones, that they loose grip on what it 's like to hold a conversation. Sherry understands this is to be because when we use digital technology as a form of communication, we only utilize one or two of our human senses.The
“Technology is supposed to make our lives easier, allowing us to do things more quickly and efficiently. But too often it seems to make things harder, leaving us with fifty-button remote controls, digital cameras with hundreds of mysterious features.” (James Surowiecki) Whether or not is known, technology has become too heavily relied on. It is replacing important social factors such as, life skills and communication skills. While technology is created to be beneficial, there must be a point in time where we draw the line. Once face-to-face conversations begin to extinguish, this means that there is too much focus on the “screen culture”. In her writing, “Alone Together”, Sherry Turkle talks
Turkle claims in this article that technology affects our face to face conversation. As she point out at the beginning of her article by “And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.” I agree that technology has some side effect in our conversation; however, she indicates how families nowadays spend time together by using cell phone. I believe in my house it is the opposite. From my experiment for example, when we sit together, we have a basket over the T.V so we put our cell phones
It’s hard to believe that the cell phone, which has revolutionized daily life, is a relatively new phenomenon. It wasn’t that long ago, that a telephone was like a piece of “furniture” that connected to a wall in a home or place of business and was used for making a telephone call. Today a cell phone is a part of one’s wardrobe. It goes where we go, and it is used for so much more than making calls. In his book Cell Phone Culture, Dr. Gerard Goggin looks at the cultural implications of this transformative piece of technology. But to do so, he first discusses the history of the cell phone and how that history impacted society.
Irvine, Martha. “Text Messaging: Is Texting Ruining the Art of Conversation?” Huffington Post 3 June
It is no secret that for the past few years people all over the world have lost sight of personal communication and face-to-face conversations. Everyone is so consumed in their cell phones and social media that many do not know how to hold a proper conversation without an electronic device in their hand. Many people cannot have face-to-face conversations because they are used to having a screen in front of their face. This causes lack of proper communication. Cell phones are slowly taking over our lives and communication skills and very few people acknowledge it.
Many studies point out how cell phones have changed our lifestyles dramatically over the years. They’ve become a part of people because as many can’t go anywhere without a cell phone at their side. Cell phones began as just a talking device, but today, one can now call, store contacts, text, email, surf the web and have access to endless apps. Though much has been said about cell phones becoming a huge distraction in today’s society, less attention has been paid to how much cell phones have transformed over the year and the advancements they’ve given us. (Ray)
In Sherry Turkle’s article “The Flight from Conversation,” she emphasizes that technology has given us the chance to be comfortable with not having any real-life connections and allowing our devices to change society’s interactions with each other. Turkle believes that our devices have allowed us to be comfortable with being alone together and neglecting real life connections. She opens her article up with “We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.” (Turkle, 2012. Page 1). Turkle is trying to say that we have given up on socializing with each face-to-face and forgot all about connections. In the article, Turkle continues to provide examples of how we let our devices take over and