The Flight From Conversation Summary

Sherry Turkle, author of “The Flight From Conversation” (The New York Times, April 21, 2012), outlines the dependency people have placed on electronics by emphasizing our lack of communication skills. Although the author correctly claims that people are dependent on electronics and that we have the option to manipulate it as we see fit, she overgeneralizes the lack of communication within the workplace by only inquiring about the working environment and not a social environment after work is complete. Even with the discrepancy, she is passionate to spread her message about her research of human development with electronics.
Sherry Turkle argues that people are always communicating using technology while simultaneously hiding from each other. …show more content…
The author calls this the Goldilocks effect, “not too much [information], not too little- just right.” She suggests that people have the power to edit photos and posts to show the world only what they want to share. Many people online have profiles full of pictures of them adventuring and happy, but rarely, if ever, do we see on the same page the times when people are sad and reveal their whole self. Carmen Fishwick, author evaluating narcissism and technology, quotes Instagram user William Roberts, which he states that, “the only purpose of Instagram is to promote the highlights of your life… My own posts rarely reflect my feelings when I am sad, depressed or lonely and entirely reflect the positive side of my life,” concluding that the majority of people edit their life to show what they want, in Roberts case, happiness. The connection we make with the world is important to us and making sure we don’t reflect the negative makes us feel normal because what we see on other profiles is positive. Though we reflect positively online, this could actually lead to a negative outcome when …show more content…
If we were to walk “through a college library or the campus of a high-tech start-up, one sees the same thing: we are together, but each of us is in our own bubble, furiously connected to keyboards and tiny touch screens,” which is what we should expect when we walk through a competitive institution (Turkle). What Turkle conveniently avoids are the places in which people aren’t working in a productive manner. In my personal experience of working at my high school and Dunkin’ Donuts, the majority of my time was working on what needed to be done, but during breaks or even in the back room there was always laughter and conversation. When I first started working, I would immediately look at my phone when I started my breaks, but I quickly learned that the best moments were those when I got to talk to the donut maker in the back. He was at least double my age, but we bonded over work and he taught me a lot about his past and how to survive in the working world. Technology does not rule our lives and does not segregate us from emotional connections in the workplace, but it can keep us separate if we must use technology to complete our