Brian
Lee
12/1/14
Essay
3
3:50
PM after school on a Wednesday with a project due tomorrow. “Check Facebook”.
“Check Instagram”. “Check twitter”. “Check YouTube. 11:00 PM and you got a
project due in 8 hours. In the book Alone Together, by Turkle, she explores the
concept of how technology, and social media is not only taking over our lives
but creating a rift between us as humans and how we interact with each other.
In the book she argues that social media toxic and how we should remove it from
our lives if we want to prevent ourselves from becoming “robots” In my honest
opinion, although I see her point, how social media can be an addiction, I
reject her claim in saying that we should remove it. Social media allows us as
humans too stay connected and be free to say what we want to say. Technological
advances are key in helping our society stay more connected, not turn us into
robots.
Turkle
makes a lot of good points in the book that I must agree with. I do agree
technology can be an addiction and can also be detrimental towards one’s life.
When she starts talking about how people are living double lives one on the
internet and one in real life, and how that can be bad, I agree. “We expect more from technology and less
from each other.” (15) I agree with this because if someone were to start to
depend only on their technology for entertainment, business, and life, they
will soon become way too addicted. And yes I think phones and social media can
be addictive. Once someone suffers through an addiction they revolve their
lives around them, in our society we should be revolving our lives around our
family and friends, not our phones, and I think that’s the problem she points
out. She finds too many people are choosing their phones over actually talking
to other people in real life, and that is true. The main issue though, that I
agree with, is her idea that people living double lives online are suffering.
Yes I wish for people to express themselves however they please, I don’t believe
that creating an online profile and completely shutting out their own lives is necessary.
Your real life, your life in reality should be the main focus of where you
express yourself, not online. Turkle explains, “Beyond all of this,
connectivity offers new possibilities for experimenting with identity and, particularly
in adolescence, the sense of a free space, what Erik Erikson called the
moratorium. (152) the problem she explains is that when we are in real trouble or
danger in our real life, our virtual friends will not be there to help and
support you. And I find this agreeable and very concerning for the people she
is talking about because if they continue to build lives online and not in real
life, they won’t have that connection or that someone to depend on when they
are in trouble. Turkle says,” We don’t count on cyber friends to come by if we
are ill, to celebrate our children’s successes, or help us mourn the death of
our parents. I play a lot of video games and have made some friends I have
never even met before playing online. Although I find their company online
enjoyable, I will never consider them my true real friends, as harsh as that
sounds, because the friends I have in my life, here in Mountain View, will be
there for me when I am down, or when I am suffering. Not to throw any shots at
the friends I met online, they seem like great people, but I just don’t feel comfortable
invite them to my house as would my friends who live here. So yes it is
dangerous for someone to develop online friendships and consider it their main source
for entertainment, because in the end it is the friends you make out here that make
your life great and pure. I although do not live a double life online I have
found myself more and more procrastinating by indulging myself with online
features such as YouTube and Facebook. I spend days on end and find myself
struggling to finish assignments early, instead waiting for the last minute. If
there was no YouTube, then maybe I would have finished my assignment quicker,
but because of social media, and all this technology, I find myself waiting for
the last minute to finish an assignment.
Yes Turkle makes good points on why social media
is bad, I find her argument hard to agree with because I feel that society
revolves so much around technology, we will crash and burn if technology and
social media is stripped away. “It can be a big timewaster but it keeps me
connected to people that live far away and helps stay connected to friends and
family from across the world. I also use social media as a way to contact
classmates for homework, and manage businesses, and sometimes just for some
entertainment” (Interview with David Tran) I found this quote very important in
arguing why social media can be good. Turkle only uses examples of where people
are addicted and decides to remove social media without realizing the
usefulness of social media. I have 2 cousins in Taiwan that I cannot text, or
internationally call, instead we use Facebook as a way of keeping in touch,
also with my cousins who live in Vancouver. I also use skype and Line, an Asian
form of skype, as a way to talk to my parents who currently work in Asia and
reside there. If it were not for social media or technological advances the
only means of contacting them would be through Mail which takes around 3 weeks
to deliver. Is that really worth it? Another problem is the time zone
difference when it is day time here, it is midnight there. Turkle actually
meets someone similar in the book. Julia doesn’t really share the same
situation as me, but prefers email and texting her dad because she is not ready
for face to face conversations, and finds email much more convenient. “I’m
going to try to talk to him through email”. Julia is not ready to speak to her
dad through the phone.” (244) Another argument she brings up is that talking
through the phone or text is destroying true human interaction. I think what
she speaks for in this statement is only a handful of individuals who become
more introvert because of texting and social media. Does she not realize that
kids since they were 6 all the way to adulthood and maybe even until death interact
with millions of kids? They see kids every day, high school friends every day,
college friends every day, and work colleagues every day, and the only way to
be able to contact them is through true human interaction. You cannot expect yourself
to never interact with your peers at all and only express yourself through
online. Although there are a selected few that is only a handful compared to
the number of people who have real human interaction every day. When the Native
American man came in for Native American Heritage month, he described
technology as a detriment to the earth, killing it and its people if it
continues to evolve. He encouraged us to throw away our technology and revert
to our Stone Age lifestyle. Although I saw moments where his argument shined, he
was not making any sense. He talked about all the evil of technology, but when
asked, turns out he owned phones, cars, solar panels, all part of the
technology advancement phase. It was then that I thought, technology is our
lives. As much as the older generation refuse to accept this idea, we must
understand, technology evolution is inevitable, and it has dictated our way of
life positively and negatively. Without social media, would I be able to connect
to my cousins across the globe? Without social media would I be able to find
out what and when my project is due? Without social media, would I be able to
live my life? The answer to all those questions is no. ” I
think it would be bad because so many people rely on social media not only as a
way to connect but to endorse business it is essential towards the growth of
society, but for people using it to spread gossip and post pictures of
themselves, they can take a break ever so often.(Interview) Social media is an
unstoppable force driving our society forward, we might as well go along with
the ride.
Social
media has definitely shaped my identity as a person. Using social media has definitely
connected me with different people at my school, allowing me to converse with
them not only online but also in person. It’s someone’s choice whether or not
he or she wants to talk to that person in real life, and I choose the path
where I am talking to them both online and in real life. I have met some of my
best friends from online video Games. People that go to the same school, I have
grown so much closer to them because of online video games and social media,
and like I said before, I talk to them as how I would talk to them online, it
is a matter of choice whether someone would want to talk or not in real life. That’s
why I think social media should be seen more favorably by society, it brings so
many good qualities, from talking to a family member across the globe to
meeting new people, and even expressing yourself, social media and
technological advances are key to making our society function.
