The Flight From Conversation Sparknotes

Connection. It's something we all do to bond with each other. It's how we communicate, whether face-to-face or on the Web. Some think it's superficial, while others see it as a valuable way to experience conversation, which is what we see in the readings from class. While it's complicated by danah boyd focuses on the positives of the connection we experience in today's world due to social media, the op-ed piece, "The Flight From Conversation," by Sherry Turkle seeks to bring awareness to how technology has hindered our connections outside of the digital world.

In boyd's novel, she examines the use of social media and how teens use it to connect with each other. She mainly focuses on the positives of connection, and how technology is used to supplement our lives, rather than decrease the quality of them. When she talks about the football game she …show more content…
The teen's Facebook profile was full of photos from the game along with comments and statuses filled with references to the conversations she had the night before; in this case, social media was used to extend connections and the pleasure of having made those connections long after the game ended. Social media's not used to keep people away from each other, but rather to come together even when they can't physically be together. We live in a world where immediate conversation can happen due to the use of technology, which has reshaped the way we communicate with each other. As boyd likes to point out, she doesn't see this as a bad thing. Humans are still capable of bonding with each other, we just have a slightly different way of doing so than we used to.

On the other hand, Turkle shows the downsides of social media and technology usage. While boyd mentions some of the negative consequences of the technological age, her main message is that