Purposive Communication

Montecillo Deniella Denise S.

Reaction Paper

Reaction Paper About “Connected, but Alone”

“Mom, you will rock”, Sherry Turkle started her speech titled “Connected, but alone?” by the good luck
text message she received from her daughter. It was the year 2011 and she reminisced her first ted talk in 1996
when became the cover of a magazine for her book that celebrated the life on internet. She mentioned how they
explored chat rooms and virtual communities in order to make our lives better. Unfortunately, this speech is
about how this technology has affected people in a bad way, the reason behind it, and the action we need to do
to use it better.
She stated that our devices have psychological power to change what we do and who we are. Some
points that she emphasized was that we are alone together, we hide from each other and we use goldilocks
effect. We are alone together just like how she described her daughter; we often spend our time with friends and
family together but, we are always on our phone. We hide from each other because instead of talking to the
people around us, we are more interested in our devices. And lastly, we are limiting other people to truly know
us by using the goldilocks effect in which she described as not to close yet not too far, but just right based on
how we want other people to view us. The efficiency of these online communication is usually an advantage, at
the same time, we are slowly drifting from the real world. All these points that Turkle mentioned perfectly describe
how we are living right now. It makes us obsess with perfection because of what we discover through this
technology.
No one is listening. This is the reason why we always turn in on our devices. They can make us feel less
alone because online media and technology provides us auto-listeners. We feel like we will always be heard,
and we can put or attention in different places because we have control over technology. She also shared a story
about a robot helping an elderly to feel comfort and it was painful for her to realize that robots who does not know
the arc of life would show fake empathy, making someone feel better. She realized that we now expect more
from technology and less from each other.
Right now, being alone feels like a problem to be solve and connecting is more of a symptom than a cure.
In fact, the more we connect, the more we get isolated. She explained that when we connect to avoid being
alone, we do not solve the problem because it is more like we use other people for support when we are fragile.
And if we are not able to be alone, we are going to be lonely. In her speech in 1996, she mentioned that those
who makes most of their lives on screen, should have a self-reflection. It is now the time to talk and reflect on
the usage of technology in our lives, she declared in the year 2011. And I agree with her since all these bad
habits that technology have caused us are also the one developing our identity and personality. We need to
change how we use it because it is almost a decade since she made this speech and now that it is more
advanced, our situation is also worse than how it was. Furthermore, even if we add up all tweets of online
communication, she did not categorize it as a real conversation. We need to have real conversation outside the
virtual world and connect better with people that surrounds us.
To sum it up, technology in communication is not helping us the way it was pictured years ago. It was
now, one of the reasons why most people experience mental problems and poor communication skills. I am one
of these, and I also want to change this. I am not good at online communication and I prefer face-to-face
interaction with my friends but I am also afraid of connected/ talking to other people. Most of the time, even when
I am with my friends, I would use my phone than talk with them. This TED talk really helped me realize how
important communication is, how a conversation can make or break us, and how it can build our relationships.
Communicating online may be comforting already but it would be very different to talk and have a real
conversation personally. We may not be good enough in communicating with people but we would not be able
to improve if we will not risk to make mistakes and learn.