Technology is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. The internet constantly connects each individual to form one united mass and as a result, our society is more connected now than ever. However, “research portrays Americans as increasingly insecure, isolated, and lonely” (157). In an aim to identify the cause of our societal loneliness, Sherry Turkle, a researcher renowned for her social studies on technology, wrote Alone Together, a book which examines that constant connectivity to technology takes a larger toll on the individual than previously thought. In her book, Turkle makes a balanced argument that technology’s ubiquity and permanence in the 21st-century American society, frails the self and our individuality.
Throughout the book, …show more content…
But Turkle argues that technology’s permanence also frails the self by inhibiting individuality. Turkle reminisces of the McCarthy era when her grandmother showed Sherry the names on their apartment block’s mailboxes. There was no need to hide one’s identity because going through mail was (and still is) a federal offense. But the internet is the wild west of the 21st century and anyone can look through your personal information because of its permanence online. Turkle argues this permanence has created a society where “[t]he way to deal is to just be good” (263), but America’s success comes from new ideas that challenge and dissent the norm; the internet’s permanence inhibits …show more content…
By using many different interviews from vastly different generations, Turkle makes her argument that technology frails the self without saying it explicitly. Thus, readers must engage with Turkle’s book directly, looking at their own relationships with technology. While some have the capacity to read Alone Together objectively, Turkle’s depiction of our society is bleak and therefore easy to pass off as biased against technology. Interestingly, we are quicker to defend technology than ourselves. But technology is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present and its grasp on our society is strong. It makes our generation a hollow shell of what it once meant to be human and the self truly deserves
Throughout the book, …show more content…
But Turkle argues that technology’s permanence also frails the self by inhibiting individuality. Turkle reminisces of the McCarthy era when her grandmother showed Sherry the names on their apartment block’s mailboxes. There was no need to hide one’s identity because going through mail was (and still is) a federal offense. But the internet is the wild west of the 21st century and anyone can look through your personal information because of its permanence online. Turkle argues this permanence has created a society where “[t]he way to deal is to just be good” (263), but America’s success comes from new ideas that challenge and dissent the norm; the internet’s permanence inhibits …show more content…
By using many different interviews from vastly different generations, Turkle makes her argument that technology frails the self without saying it explicitly. Thus, readers must engage with Turkle’s book directly, looking at their own relationships with technology. While some have the capacity to read Alone Together objectively, Turkle’s depiction of our society is bleak and therefore easy to pass off as biased against technology. Interestingly, we are quicker to defend technology than ourselves. But technology is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present and its grasp on our society is strong. It makes our generation a hollow shell of what it once meant to be human and the self truly deserves