Technology's Impact On Relationships - Part 2

February 2, 2011

Interview with Sherry Turkle, author of the book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other

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Mike Carruthers:
More and more people would rather text than talk on their cell phones and when you ask them why?

Sherry Turkle:
They say I’m not in control of the conversation if I call.
 

Sherry Turkle, author of the book Alone Together...

A conversation you know you have to listen to the other person, you have to hear maybe a story about the bad day they had, a text you say what you want, you attend to what you want, you don’t answer if you don’t want to, you’re in control. We’re finding ways to communicate with each other where we stay in control.

Whether it’s talking or texting we are spending an awful lot of time occupied by our electronic gadgets.

People get 100, 200, 300, 400 emails a day, they become reactive, they lose the time to be creative and to be generative. They just find themselves, for example, reacting to their emails rather than saying, “What do I think, what are my new ideas, what are my new contributions?”

So what do we do when technology is interfering with our lives and relationships? Sherry says we should ask ourselves…

Is this serving the purposes of my family? And if the answer is no, then tools down. I think that the kitchen and the dining room should be sacred spaces – those are not the places for texting. Parents should model for their children that you don’t need to be in communication all the time.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here