Technology Shapes Our Generation

Turkle highlights how technology can take such an influence on our culture with its pros and cons. “Too much of everything isn’t always healthy”, is what you usually would hear around when something seems to be reoccurring. Depending on how one takes on opportunities it can still be innocent and fascinating or it can result in as an obsession or taboo. Technology helps us seek our desires to be happy through our basic factors of life day by day, and in a way some view this as seeing our culture going downhill.  Almost everyday, I somehow get influence by this statement. It can be innocent and fascinating when I receive a text from a long lost friend that I haven’t talked to for a while that lives hundreds of miles away. The taboo of having my phone is I can’t have 100% of my attention in class since I always would want to text. This statement can be reflected in my service learning portion by opening my eyes of portraying the difference in working face to face with kids, comparing to just giving them a phone call and tutor them through our devices. By participating at MCCS, it will produce some time off from technology, such as being on my phone, Internet, etc. Likewise, going back to the statement above, technology can influence our culture too much, where sometimes we need to take a step back and just reach out to others without it. As a benefit, with technology, I can always check on the kids with a phone call away to make sure they are stable with their school work, or why they were absent one day.

In “Robotic Moment”, Turkle states how a ten-year-old girl would prefer a robotic turtle rather than a biological one, “ For what the turtles do, you didn’t have to have the live ones” (page 4). It sad to see how the current generation is used to animatronic creatures as being real, and when they do see the realistic ones, they prefer the other. This foreshadows of how slowly our culture is expecting that technology fill in our needs.

In “Connectivity and Its Discontents”, Turkle portrays the theme of how online connections can be useful but at the same time it’s a distraction to what we are really trying to connect. “Technology makes it easy to communicate when we wish and to disengage at will” (13) especially when we are trying to keep in touch with others but at the same time accomplishing something else.  Ellen at first communicated with her grandmother through phone, but since it was expensive and limited, she wanted to try an alternate of using an online service called Skype. Even though it had the enhancements of video chatting, it wasn’t making Ellen happy. Since the time spent with her grandmother is suppose to be contributed just to them two, she secretly also doing her emails and not paying attention. By doing other things, it’s taking her out of what she was meant to be doing, and along comes guilt and loneliness.

In “Romancing the Machine: Two Stories” , there was a statement that brings up the topic of today’s society, “ Relationships with roots are ramping up; relationship with people are ramping down” (19) . Should this be viewed as something taboo or fascinating? Is it really okay to dismiss the true feelings of how to care, love, and experience for a human being for a robot?  With the previous stories in “Alone Together”, many agree that without risking the feeling of being left out, or having responsibilities to deal with break ups, or not being comfortable with others, robots are secure beings to be there. However, people like Turkle says how we should “reconsider what these purposes are” (19) and see what the pros and cons that technology has on our generation.