Rabindra Dave Ramkirath
May 9, 2013
Assignment #4
Course # SEYS 753/12184
Critical Review of an Educational Technology book
Name of Book: Alone Together
Name of Author: Sherry Turkle
Turkle’s
“Alone Together,” is a commentary of human commitment and attachment to
the digital world and the gradual drifting apart from their fellow
humans. The goal of the book is to alert humans to the fact that in order
to have maximum benefits from technology, great and firm discipline
must be employed in using them, in other words, humans must be in
control at all times. Should humans exercise lack of discipline, then
instead of being in control, technology will become in charge. Humans
will become the servant and technology will be the master. The writer
warns that should this happen, then technology will triumph and humans
will be defeated by their own inventions. Technology promises and
allows us to do anything from anywhere with anyone, but at the same
time it saps and drains us as we try to do everything everywhere. We
begin to feel overwhelmed and depleted by the lives technology makes
possible. Yes, it gives us the freedom to work from anywhere, but it
also infects us and makes us prone to being lonely everywhere. We tend
to lose companionship with other human and in time we find ourselves
acting just like a piece of machine. “Alone Together,” focuses on the
young, the digital natives growing up with cell phones and toys that they
love. As a result of insecurity in our relationships and our anxiety
for intimacy, we look to technology for ways to be in a relationship
and to protect ourselves at the same time. In the introduction to
“Alone Together,” Turkle writes,
Technology is seductive when what it offers meets our human
vulnerabilities. And as it turns out, we are very vulnerable indeed.
We are lonely but fearful of intimacy. Digital connections and the
sociable robot may offer the illusion of companionship without
the demands of friendship. Our networked life allows us to hide
from each other, even as we are tethered to each other. We’d
rather text than talk. p. 1
When
Turkle went to her local synagogue for Yiskor, the special Yon Kippur
service that remembers the dead, she heard the Rabbi delivered a sermon
about the importance of talking to the deceased and communicating four
messages to them: “I’m sorry. Thank You. I forgive you. I love you.”
This is what separates human from machine. It is this human feeling
together with our knowledge of morality and our experience of the cycle
of life that make us understand and appreciate this simply message,
“I’m sorry. Thank You. I forgive you. I love you.” These are the most
touching and intimate words we can say to another human and it is this
that distinguishes us as human and not just cold piece of machine. Here
Turkle shows strength and weakness. Strength in human as opposed to
weakness in robot. Human has the ability to feel and experience pain
and sadness and can express feelings of emotion, robot on the other
hand cannot feel or experience pain and is incapable of showing any
form of emotion.
Alone Together is the
culmination of years of empirical research. Turkle has watched people
interact with machines and socialize on digital networks. The average
American teenager sends thousands of text messages every month and
spends hours each day on Instant Messenger, My Space, and Facebook.
None of these existed a generation ago and the sad fact is that adults
are competing with their children to master the digital world. Many
adults today appear to find simulation of life more alluring than life itself.
It is true that machine will not complain, but human will, yet this in
itself should not serve as an excuse to become immersed in technology
to the extent that we ignore what we know about life.
Flesh and blood people with their untidy impulses are unreliable
and a source of stress, machines are not affected by these human
frailties. As machines become more and more reliable, there is evidence
that humanity is nearing a robotic moment. We already filter
companionship through machines, the next stage is to accept machines as
companions. Soon, robots will be employed in caring roles, entertaining
children, or nursing the elderly. Machines will replace humans in
factories, hospitals, schools, etc. and life will become a monotonous
drill, robbed of human touch and warmth.
The
argument in Alone Together unfolds in two parts. The first deals with
objects that imitate living things. Turkle’s subjects, mostly children
and the elderly are given robot companions for varying lengths of time,
then a bond is formed. The bond becomes so strong that an emotional
attachment develops. What is alarming is that we are busy in the mass
production of these robots. Soon we will see mechanical nurses in the
hospitals and pet robots giving comfort to lonely residents of care
homes. The central point in Turkle’s book is that more and more people
are projecting human qualities in robots, digital toys like the Furby
and computerized companions like the Paro are designed to provide
entertainment and comfort. Scientist developing the latest robots,
report feelings of pseudo-parental attachment. They hate leaving the
machines alone in empty laboratories at night.
The second part deals with our addiction to the web. Turkle has
interviewed people of all ages and from a wide range of social
backgrounds and finds identical patterns of compulsive behavior. We
start with the illusion that technology will give us control, but end
up being controlled by technology. We get Blackberries to better manage
our emails, but find ourselves cradling them in bed first thing in the
morning and last thing at night. Without realizing it, we have allowed
ourselves to become slaves to technology. In both parts of the book,
Turkle produces interviews by children and adults along with data to
show the benefits and setbacks that technology can provide. Human can
find comfort and strength in the proper usages of technology and also
be aware of the weakness and danger in its misuse.
Children today, are absorbed in the digital world in a way that
older generations can hardly comprehend. Turkle interviews teenagers
who are morbidly afraid of the telephone. They find the telephone very
upsetting. A phone call requires spontaneous performance, text messages
and Facebook can create the illusion of spontaneity. Turkle comments,
These days, being connected depends not on our distance from each
other but from available communications technology. Most of the
time, we carry that technology with us. In fact, being alone can
start to seem like a precondition for being together because it is
easier to communicate if you can focus, without interruption,
on your screen. p. 155
One major weakness in the book is that technology is portrayed in
an unfair manner. Technology is not performing on its own, it does not
have the intelligence to do so. It is human that dictates the ways that
technology works. When human fails, then technology will malfunction.
If teachers should become dependent on technology in their classrooms,
then this will also encourage their students to become dependent on it
as well. This will not promote logical thinking and when technology
fails, so will the teachers and their students. Yes, technology is a
vital learning tool to scaffold students’ knowledge and understanding
of new material, but if it is being used too much by the teachers and
their students, then it will rob them of their critical and logical
thinking that is necessary in today’s workplace. In this context, the
book “Alone Together” can serve a useful purpose in the classroom.
Finally,
it is my humble opinion that we have travelled a long distance down the
digital road, so far, that we have almost become consumed by the
technologies. The further we go, the more consumed we will become, only
to find ourselves lost in the digital world, far removed from human
companionship.
Bibliography
Turkle, S. (2012). Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. Basic Books.