Is the Internet Changing Us?

Do you ever wonder if technology like the Internet is changing us? If so, you’re not alone.

There are many people interested in this issue of how we create the technology but then it ends up changing us --- for the better? A good question.

Professor Sherry Turkle works in the Program of Science, Technology, and Society at MIT and is the founder and current director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. Turkle has also presented two very interesting TED talks. TED is an acronym for Technology, Entertainment and Design devoted to spreading ideas via interesting speakers giving short presentations on a very wide range of subjects; if you have not yet viewed TED.com, treat yourself to one at your earliest convenience.

In her first TED talk in 1996, Turkle came across as an evangelist for the Internet. She enthusiastically endorsed its promise of connecting humankind and believed that we would use the information gained through this virtual world to enhance our endeavors and make us more fully human. However, in 2012 she did another TED talk recanting her prior position. Instead of enhancing our lives, she argued that it is instead degrading them. Technology has allowed us to hide from real encounters with others as well as assuage our boredom. Her exact words were, “As a psychologist, what excited me most was the idea that we would use what we learned in the virtual world about ourselves, about our identity, to live better lives in the real world.”

On the other hand, she admits at the start of her 2012 talk that she loves getting texts; in fact she had just received one from her daughter just minutes before going on, “Mom, you will rock.” Turkle goes on to point out, “I'm still excited by technology, but I believe, and I'm here to make the case, that we're letting it take us places that we don't want to go...those little devices in our pockets are so psychologically powerful that they don't only change what we do, they change who we are. ”

Her epiphany came when she was visiting a nursing home where she was part of team treating an elderly woman who was grieving over a child who had recently died. Turkle’s part was to supply a “sociable robot” to give the patient the calming feeling that they were understood. This particular robot was constructed to resemble a baby seal and it was doing an amazing job of comforting her as it appeared to be understanding and following the conversation Many on the team found this amazing, but Turkle did not. She remembers, “...that woman was trying to make sense of her life with a machine that had no experience of the arc of a human life. ..That robot can't empathize. It doesn't face death. It doesn't know life...We expect more from technology and less from each other. And I ask myself, "Why have things come to this?"

Have things come to this? I believe so and I agree with Turkle that the root of the problem is control; in this case, it’s control over where you choose to put your attention. She says, “So you want to go to that board meeting, but you only want to pay attention to the bits that interest you. And some people think that's a good thing. But you can end up hiding from each other, even as we're all constantly connected to each other.”

I would add another factor to why we spend so much time “alone together”and that is: boredom.. We humans, at least in this culture, just cannot deal with being bored for any appreciable length of time. Whether we’re in traffic, waiting at the check-out or just plain “at loose ends” it’s a frustrating and often claustrophobic experience. So, to combat the boredom, we have TV, smartphones, and even books to assuage the pain of boredom. What to do?

Ironically, there’s an app for that, “Headspace” which is described in the July 6&15 New Yorker.. “The Higher Life”. Is this Two Wrongs making a Right or is it just fighting fire with fire (which, in fact, works in extreme cases? Stay tuned.