Connection
is no communication.
Sherry Turkle (see photo) writes in her third book Alone
together about the dangers of the internet. Being connected makes us unable to be with the people who
surround us. She sees parents at a playground who are texting while their
children are playing. Internet conversation are not like real life
conversations with their ups and downs. We are the ideal self we want to be in
stead of our real selves. On Facebook we don’t want to say something negative,
because we fear missing out. We are
hiding from ourselves, afraid to show us to another as we really are. It is
impossible to interrupt during a internet conversation. We don’t learn to get
to know the other person.
Adolescents
think they’ll never be alone, surrounded as they are by technology. They want
to have a feeling and therefore go to internet instead of havintg a desire to
communicate their feelings. They are not entering a relationship and not
learning a kind of solitude, which refreshes and restores the mind. When
adolescents don’t learn to be alone, they will become lonely.
Daphne
mentions that in the Netherlands this week is the week against loneliness. A
Dutch sociologist says that the internet helps to battle loneliness.
Sherry
answers that it depends. Social media can also be a means to reach out.
DB: in your
first books The Second Self and Life on the Screen you were more
optimistic about this technology. Were you wrong?
ST: no, it
explores our identity. In 1995, though, I saw that this technology was always
on and always on us like a phantom limb. We bail out when a conversation
becomes difficult and go to a virtual place.
DB: are we
not in a transional phase, learning how to deal with this technology?
ST: I hope so.
DB: in your
book you make a distinction between youngsters and adults.
ST: I first
thought that teenagers were the victims and that adults just looked on, but
later on I discovered that parents were texting and their childern were begging
them for attention. So I am optimistic that they don’t let this happen to their
children in the future.
DB: there
are 800 millions of Facebook users. The fastest population is between 35 and 44
years old. Why is that?
ST: they
are thrilled by the newness and vulnerable to the illusion of companionship
without the demands of friendship.
DB: I am
happy with internet because, instead of phoning, I can choose to whom and how
to respond.
ST:
teenagers are phobic to have a conversation and they don’t learn to do it this
way.
Sherry
speaks about a masterclass and mixed answers about privacy, which is the
defining issue of our time, she says. Some young people say they don’t need
privacy because they have nothing to hide, but we also need privacy for
democracy.
DB: why is
that?
ST: each
citizen needs a space for some kind of descend. My grandma said that mail was
private in the US. Just because we grow up with the internet, we think we are
grown up, but we aren’t. We have to find out about our privacy. Consumer
movements can help us with that.
DB: was
there not a lack of communication before the internet period?
ST:
technology is not a fundamental solution to social problems.
DB: is
internet a symptom for loneliness?
ST: yes, a
yearning for technology is a symptom of the unability to have a conversation.
DB: what
can we do about it?
ST: ask
yourself what this technology is costing you and find out what is a more
fruitful digital diet.
Four
remarks:
Americans
are more afraid to be negative than Europeans is my impression.
I guess
that Evgeny Morozov will have another opinion about the fruitfullness of
internet for democracy.
My children
are very active on the internet, but also have a lot of parties with their
friends.
Daphne
Bunskoek is not on Facebook, neither on Twitter.
Toen ik studeerde had Sherry Turkle pas 2 eerdere boeken uitgebracht en zag ze er misschien uit zoals op de foto. Dat is echter een complete generatie geleden. Wat bezielt mevrouw Bunshoek om Turkle in de tijd te verplaatsen?
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