"Connected, but alone?"

 Prompt: How do you feel about the issues Turkle raises in her article and TED  Talk? Did the pandemic change the way you feel about yourself (personally and professionally) in relation to technology?

I started with Sherry Turkle's TED Talk "Connected, but alone?". She makes the argument that technology is taking us places we don't want to go and that the devices that we carry around with us "don't only change what we do, they change who we are"(2:42). I don't necessarily agree with this, but maybe that is because I am looking at it through the lens of current day instead of when this TED Talk came out 11 years ago. I don't think that it changes who were are as people just more about how we interact with the world.

A point that she made that I agreed with were that people are being together while not being together. They are physically in the same room but mentally in their technology. You can see this at school when kids are waiting to go in standing in a circle while all on their phones or when you watch a movie with friends and someone inevitably ends up on their phone.

I also agree that having your interactions online gives you control over certain aspects of the interaction. You can control how long the conversation is and your reaction because of the wait time being virtual allows.

I am glad I watched the TED Talk first because it was interesting to see how her point of view, though still connected, made a slight shift in understanding the importance of technology in our current world.

The second piece by Sherry Turkle was the article The Pandemic Made Us Strangers to Ourselves. The first quote that stuck out to me was "that our phones offered so many ways to connect but inhibited deep bonds of love and friendship". The first time I read that I found myself getting a little defensive, especially having met great friends (and even my husband) online. But then I wondered if she was talking about the role of technology in fostering those relationships online, or the barrier it could create between people when physically together and I think further in her article she makes the argument for both being true. She wrote about not being able to foster a relationship with people online "I couldn't make eye contact with my colleagues or students. The closest I could come was starting into the green light on the top of my laptop screen, which gives the other person the illusion that you are looking into their eyes." But then also talked about how people choose to go on their phones to act as barriers to not feel vulnerable and that "vulnerability is the first step towards intimacy".

I think that what it comes down to is that technology CAN change how you interact with the world, both good and bad. But I would also say that it does not change who you are as a person, we just need to use it in the right way.  I think that the pandemic allowed me to see technology as more of a tool to be used in order to achieve certain tasks; professionally - teaching using online platforms, personally - using apps to achieve certain tasks likes all of my lists in the notes app.  While technology was our main, and sometimes only form of communication during the pandemic, I have found I have already started relying less on technology to maintain personal relationships post COVID. Professionally, it opened my eyes to the need of more communication tools with both students and parents. This is something I am still working on.