Digital Gaga

 Is the Digital Age making us loners?

Sherry Turkle fears that millions of people are psychologically overpowered by technology. Our mobile communication "parking lots" is "setting us up for failure by making us used to being alone while together...Hiding from each other even as we're constantly connected to each other." In her TedTalk Connected, but alone? (2021), Turkle gives examples of how her teenage daughter spends hours with her friends without engaging because each is on their respective hand-held devices. Professionals "pay attention to only the parts that interest them" while at meetings. And at funerals, she has studied how guests of the departed discretely use their cell phones as words are spoken to honor those who have passed away.

This is not a strange notion. I must confess that I glance at my phone every time it lights up with an alert while working, knowing that my full attention should be on the topic of discussion. 

I often have to show a TikTok that entertained me during dinner with my children or watch one they enjoyed.  My phone is my third hand and holds quite a lot of my attention except for my bathroom uses.  I am aware and refuse to be the person in the bathroom while on the throne with her cell phone as I have witnessed others be. However, I hardly ever feel alone at home, at work or while at an event. I love to ask about others' life experiences or what's their favorite TikTok or if they read the last EOC post about the issues of the House of Congress on Insta.  So, although tech "changes what we do" I do not believe "that it changes who we are." 

I was raised receiving one toy or gift at Christmas and my birthday; sewing and crocheting as my grandmother taught me. I had writing, reading and dancing as hobbies. And, I was only allowed to watch 2 hours of television a day, after my chores and homework were done, and before my curfew of 8 o'clock, on the tv my siblings and I shared. That I meant that I hit to listen to the radio a lot because I didn't get to the remote fast enough to watch something I enjoyed. I learned how to not be bored and how to create my own experiences. Today, many of whom have grown up digitally have not been able to develop social skills or learned to create "something out of nothing" when they are bored because their parents put them in front of screens and other technology that produced entertainment for them without much of their own critical thoughts applied. This leads some to "get lost in technology."

In Turkle's article, The Pandemic Made Us Strangers (20121) in Time, she reflects on how we - people in many nations - did feel lonely and "were truly "together alone" during the Covid-19 pandemic. We yearned for physical connection and made many digital relationships to make up for what we lacked. Our screens became our friends as we also spent time "staring into the green light on top of the laptop" giving "the other person the illusion that we were looking into their eyes."  The Covid-19 pandemic made the use of digital devices a madness, a culture in which it's awkward to talk in person and more comfortable to text.

I think that the closer in age one is to the time of the pandemic, the easier it is for one to accept digital connection in place of eye-to-eye conversations. I'm a touchy-feely person who prefers a voice Ann a possibility to touch over a typed response anyday.