Hello all! It’s been awhile. I hope you’ve been following my journey through Sherry Turkle’s book, Alone Together, on Twitter.
To be honest, I’m not quite done with the book yet. I’m a pretty slow reader and live-tweeting a reading takes a lot more effort than I thought it would (though it should all be done by 10 am tomorrow. Woohoo all-nighters!). Being on the Internet means I feel compelled to reward myself every couple of minutes with some Facebook or Tumblr scrolling, so the live element of my Tweeting makes me extra distractable. I’ve definitely gotten better since the beginning of last week, but it’s been tough!
Right now I’m on page 229, meaning I’m in the middle of the second section. This book is basically the research and situations that support the observations Turkle made in her TedTalk, as I’ve talked about in this post and this post. Each chapter reads as both a chronological narrative of Sherry’s discovery of new technologies and a case study of the effects of certain hardware/software/websites on different subjects. Being that the book is a giant case study of social technologies, it is dense and highly technical. It deals with sociology, psychology, psychiatry, technology and even a bit of politics, economics, identity and gender. There is an attempt for the language to reach a general audience, but only if that audience has Google open next to them.
The book is divided into two sections, the first being about social robots and the second being about social media. Each chapter in the first section is focused on a different robot tested by Turkle’s MIT research team. As we read, the human-robot relationships become increasingly complex and worrisome as the technology advances. It begins with the simple Tomagotchis and Furbies and ends with the possibility of nursing robots, capable of caring for children and the elderly both physically and emotionally. While marveling at the nature of the technology, Turkle is also troubled. More and more subjects (mostly young children and the elderly) attach themselves to these objects, these non-human who cannot truly converse or relate to the subjects that engage it. Turkle questions why this happens and worries about its implications. Her answer? People don’t have time for people anymore, and it is a positive feedback loop that feeds into itself.
People don’t like the complications of “real” relationship since “real” relationships can potentially interrupt their busy lives. So instead they attach themselves to robots (who are always “on”, ready to be socialized with at your leisure) or to the virtual projections of other’s selves through online gaming and social media websites. This latter option is what the second part of the book is concerned with. This part of the book gets away from the demographics of the first section and explores the wider middle realm of technology users. Although I’ve yet to finish this part, I can see what Turkle is getting at. In social media, we are “always on,” accessible, convenient. But is such passive communication fulfilling? What is the cost of this convenience? Turkle theorizes that in this state of constant state of connection, we forget how to be alone. Solitude is confused with loneliness and necessary reflection is bypassed.
This book was a challenge as it oscillated between highly scientific and densely theoretical. The content was certainly interesting, since I’ve had many online relationships myself, but I think what really kept me reading were the nostalgic elements. Although the book studies a wide range of ages over several years, many of the websites and technologies that Turkle talks about are ones that I have experienced and used. Seeing myself in the mindset of the subjects, who are Facebookers, frequent players of the Sims and attached to their Tomagotchis, allowed me to understand and believe their responses. However, this also made me resistant to Turkle’s criticism of her subjects.
First I wondered how ethical it was to get children and elderly attached to things that she would have to take away from them. Then I got defensive. What is so wrong about relating with people through the internet? Turkle questions the legitimacy of any relationship that is with an object or translated through machinery. I see her point. While the technology of writing allowed the author of words to be absent during a reading, internet removes an author even more. Not only can they be not present, but they can change their name and recreate the self on a grand, widely varying and often broadcasted scale. Relationships forming in this fog seems dubious at best from an outsider—how can you ever truly know that person when they propagate so many identities? How can anything they say or do be considered real when they don’t need to own up to any of it? How honest can a statement be when it can be filtered through the composition of social media?
Although I agree it is difficult to maintain intimacy of relationships started in real-life on the web, and that never truly “meeting” at person can put a flare of illegitimacy onto each interaction, I also think healthy web-based relationships are possible. I know this from experience: my best friend of 7 years and my boyfriend of 8 are both people I met and formed relationships with over the internet. At this point, I’ve met both of them in person, so I know how true their web-selves are. These relationships may not have lasted so long if not for that.
But I don’t think relationships have so much to do with the medium you talk through as what you’re talking about. I think about communication a lot, being a writing major and a member of a long distance relationships, and I’ve come to the conclusion that shared experience is what brings people together. In real life, this can take the form of taking the same class or hating the same person. Online this can refer to keeping up with the same web comic or playing a real time video game together. A “shared experience” gives participants not only something to talk about and relate with, but also usually requires immediate responses. Like in the video game example: maybe if you were just having a conversation with the person you are playing with, you could bite your tongue about something, but since our attention is strained, you may say things quickly and with less thought. It is more “realistic” in this way.
“Shared experience” also creates realism in the way that conversation grows naturally out of it. If you are having coffee with a friend, you may see someone with a purple umbrella, and then you start talking about how you both love the color purple. Similarly, you and someone else might be discussing the Doctor’s new companion in a forum and then get “sidetracked” into thoughts about her hacking ability and how you would like to learn how to do that. I think the shared experience factor is what makes my boyfriend much more successful at staying connected to his friends when they’re away: while he connects with them through League of Legends, I trade facts with my buddies on Facebook in that unsuccessful “always on” way. My way, which is isolated and not immediate, intimidating but also convenient, is much less authentic than his jibs, jokes and plans that come through the game. So yeah, Turkle is right about social media being not quite fulfilling, I just have some disagreement as to why.
I think the biggest short coming of this book is the lack of photographs. Turkle does provide some decent descriptions of the robots, but those chapters often read as observed scenes. From the standpoint of a writer, I felt having the image of the robot be concrete would be much more effective in getting the reader to understand the nature of the interaction that occurs.
I have so many more thoughts about this book but I want to wait until I finish it completely to say more. Look out for another post soon with my Tweeting highlights, some more thoughts and perhaps pictures of robots.
Becoming Digital 