Connected, but alone? by Sherry Turkle

January 18, 2023

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Adapt and Evolve

“We sacrifice conversation for mere connection” was the first line that struck me as

Sherry Turkle, an MIT professor of Social Studies of Science and Technology, conducted her

TED Talk in 2012. Its irony paints us the scene of misplaced and potentially mishandled

technology. The sender, message, and receiver are three elements of communication I

automatically process in my head, as the boundaries of a channel are blurred from engaging in

both real-life and digital forms. This phenomenon is exacerbated by the pandemic and its

unhealthy to encounter human emotions such as heartbreak and triumph in virtual reality, but

what can we do? If anything, it encourages self-reflection. We consume information and decide

when to digest it; we have learned to take a step back, either to cerebrate or celebrate it.

Towards the end, Turkle hastily draws hope for the future of technology and how we can

transform it to benefit us genuinely. I must admit that she could have expounded more since this

was one of the few ideas I agreed with throughout her dialogue. We listened and analyzed her

points through a screen, after all. I believe it is up to us to maximize telecommunication because

technology has been developed to make our lives more convenient. We are human and we cannot

deny feelings; therefore, it is evolution that we get to choose our own pace when it comes to

personal experiences.