main idea of the essay the flight from conversation

“The Flight from Conversation” by Sherry Turkle Essay (Critical Writing)

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Notably, “Flight from Conversation” is one of the essays written by Sherry Turkle, one of the professors at the Massachusetts Institution of Technology. It depicts her research on technology and communication. She uses the essay to address the popular audience living in the current generation, influenced by advancements in technology. Focusing on the technological universe from Turkle’s research, she dramatically expresses its effects on people. “I have studied technology of mobile connection and talked to hundreds of people of all ages and circumstances” (Turkle, 359). This shows that Turkle, from her essay she captures the greater audience with technological knowledge.

Nevertheless, Turkle also shows the targeted audience by mentioning activities at home, such as families sitting together, texting and reading email, and at the workplace where executives rely on texting during the board meeting. Moreover, in the essay, Turkle refers to a 16-year-old boy whose total concentration is always on texting in almost everything he says. This clearly shows that Turkle’s message targets everyone regardless of age as the audience.

Turkle points out some specialized materials such as mobile phones, which provide access to Facebook and Email, thus connecting various people from different places. Therefore, through this technological material that allows connection, Turkle further explains both the negative and positive roles executed by the technology. She expresses how technology affects people’s conversations as it connects many people and denies them a chance to speak their discussions well. These portray the pitch as Turkle tries to influence people to understand the effects of technology on communication in today’s world.

Moreover, complaints are executed from Turkle’s much concern with the established relationship between people and technology. Most people assume machines to be taking care of them by providing automatic listeners. Therefore, they tend to rely mainly on devices for companionship, and the researchers are inventing social robots of all kinds solely to act as companionship. However, the heavy reliance on technology by expecting more from it than what we expect from others significantly raised concern in Turkle, and it served as a potential complaint. Moreover, from the use of digital devices to connect people, mostly conversation is interrupted as complete information is not conveyed but instead fastened to aid in ramping volume and velocity online connections. Furthermore, heavily relying on technology by constantly connecting to reduce loneliness is one of the factors that raised complaints since the action was opposite, which prompted Turkle to address the issue.

Turkle shaped her ideas and attitudes from experience obtained from the current generation, which embraced technology in conversation. During that period, she wrote the essay solely to address myriads of challenges posed by technology use in various sectors such as at the workplace, homes, and even at learning institutions. Also, from observing how people failed to report at the workplace and even when face-to-face communication was interrupted, she realized those moments motivated her to express her attitudes and ideas.

Ultimately, in the essay, Turkle depicts how individuals’ thoughts on technology have turned to something opposite. In her writing, she chose to express the effects of over-relying on technology, which impacts individual lives by affecting their conversation. She addresses these because due to the increased demand for machines and the invention of robots for companionship, individuals are at high risk of spending most of their time with machines and robots. Assuming that they will comfort them more than humans, thus losing confidence in being there for one another. Moreover, individuals are also at risk of failing to communicate well since conversation through devices denies one expressing their ideas well, and everything is fastened. However, in adherence to her opinions in the essay, she believes that it will help to improve our relationships with our fellow humans, and people will live to appreciate the kind of companionship provided by other humans rather than machines. Also, failure to believe in Turkle’s opinions in the essay; she believes that we will experience a lot of loneliness as we continue relying heavily on technology to reduce loneliness.

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ENG 3773-D576: Advanced Technical Writing

Professor belli, fall 2014.

Turkle, Sherry. “The Flight From Conversation.” Summary

In her article “The Flight From Conversation” (2012), Sherry Turkle discusses a technological world we are now living in and a way it affects our communication. S. Turkle has studied technologies of mobile connection about 15 years, and has found that mobile phones have changed not only the we behave, but also our personalities. Being constantly connected with one another, in fact we are trying to hide ourselves from an actual communication. We are living in a technological world where people fear to have real conversations. Technology allows us to keep people at right distance, not too far, but not too close. E-mails, instant massages, posts in Facebook and “tweets” in Twitter cannot replace conversation, but they are taking more and more space in our lives.Technology makes us expect fast answer, while face-to-face conversation teaches us to be patient to a companion. Moreover, in the process of conversation with others we learn our personality. Technology takes away this possibility of self-reflection, instead it offers  to present ourselves in a way we want to be, but not in a way we truly are. It makes us believe that our retouched voices, faces and bodies are more appealing for others than our real personalities.In a world where we unlearned how to listen to each other, people tend to consider machines  as those who care about them. A boy wishes he could talk to an artificial intelligence program about dating, instead of talking to his father. Others hope that Siri (a digital assistant) will become more advanced, so that “she” will be more like a friend for them. In conclusion, S.Turkle states that the constant connection is completely differ from face-to-face conversation, and, in fact can make us feel more lonely.

Works cited

Turkle, Sherry. “The Flight From Conversation.” The New York Times . The New York Times, 21 Apr. 2012. Web. 13 Oct. 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/the-flight-from-conversation.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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"The Flight From Conversation" by Sherry Turkle

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The Flight From Conversation

By SHERRY TURKLE

• April 21, 2012

WE live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.

At home, families sit together, texting and reading e-mail. At work executives text during board meetings. We text (and shop and go on Facebook) during classes and when we’re on dates. My students tell me about an important new skill: it involves maintaining eye contact with someone while you text someone else; it’s hard, but it can be done.

Over the past 15 years, I’ve studied technologies of mobile connection and talked to hundreds of people of all ages and circumstances about their plugged-in lives. I’ve learned that the little devices most of us carry around are so powerful that they change not only what we do, but also who we are.

We’ve become accustomed to a new way of being “alone together.” Technology-enabled, we are able to be with one another, and also elsewhere, connected to wherever we want to be. We want to customize our lives. We want to move in and out of where we are because the thing we value most is control over where we focus our attention. We have gotten used to the idea of being in a tribe of one, loyal to our own party.

Our colleagues want to go to that board meeting but pay attention only to what interests them. To some this seems like a good idea, but we can end up hiding from one another, even as we are constantly connected to one another.

A businessman laments that he no longer has colleagues at work. He doesn’t stop by to talk; he doesn’t call. He says that he doesn’t want to interrupt them. He says they’re “too busy on their e-mail.” But then he pauses and corrects himself. “I’m not telling the truth. I’m the one who doesn’t want to be interrupted. I think I should. But I’d rather just do things on my BlackBerry.”

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