Bill Gates once said that “[t]he first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” Perhaps the same can be said about the quality of inter-human communication. As the way we communicate changes from face to face conversations to Facebook chats and text messaging, some pundits have suggested that we allow the technology to become more important than its purpose. One such pundit, Sherry Turkle, recently addressed this supposed issue in Forbes Magazine. Let’s take a look at what she has to say.
She organizes her issues into five main points. The first is essentially that “people…[can] blend their real and virtual lives” (Turkle). Artificial worlds like Second Life have allowed people to live, well, a second life. The implied negative is that the more one lives virtually the less one lives in reality. While it seems logical that you can’t have your cake and it too, the reality (virtual or not) is that technology allows us to have a bigger cake and eat more of it. Our quality of life and ease of survival have permitted us to use much more time for leisure activities. While a select few may take this to a dangerous extreme, this technology is, as Mr. Gates insinuates, only magnifying people’s natural tendencies.
Turkle goes on to make two very valid points: Adults spend so much time trying to stay connected that there is little individual outside the connection and young people are less likely to develop independence because of increased technological connectivity. Both of these issues, at face value, appear to be erode our individuality, but when we look a little deeper we find that this may not be true. If it is true that our connectivity transfers some of our individuality to the people or things that we are connected to, then does that not allow us to define our individual in a more concrete way? Maybe what we consider to be deterioration is simply a transformation of our individuality.
Turkle’s fourth point relates to the lost importance of privacy in a virtual world. “We have become…accustomed to living our lives in public,” argues Turkle (Turkle). The worry here is that Big Brother is there and no one is worried about what he is looking at. It’s as if George Orwell’s 1984 didn’t make it past the nineties. Turkle, with reason, fears governmental abuse that might stem from decreased online privacy. However, what she doesn’t take into account is that the government itself has become increasingly transparent with the same technological windfall that alarms Turkle so deeply.
Turkle’s final point is that too often we use technology to ignore our immediate situations. Try as we might to find a valid criticism to this point, there is no needle in this haystack. For those who have tried to give a presentation, teach a class, or just have a conversation, they find that they are often “put on pause” for a more pressing issue occurring across the cyber-verse. Not only can it potentially destroy the confidence of the individual or group being ignored, but it generally keeps us from correctly prioritizing our lives. Still, like Bill Gates says, technology only magnifies what is already there, daydreams.
We must acknowledge that as time rolls forward connectivity rides with it. We cannot kill the messenger, the cell phone, the internet, or any of the other advancements that magnify our society’s values. However, we can focus on what values we allow those technologies to magnify.
Turkle, Sherry. "Can You Hear Me Now? - Forbes.com." Forbes.com - Business News, Financial News, Stock Market Analysis, Technology & Global Headline News. 07 May 07. Web. 26 Feb. 2010.
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