Digital technologies altered people’s lives tremendously, making them more comfortable and safer but less human. Indeed, mailboxes overflow with messages, and notifications from multiple smartphone apps appear on screens every minute. The 2012 essay “Flight from Conversation” written by Sherry Turkle discusses the dilemma of the 21st century, when people are constantly connected but always lonely.
The author’s thesis is that people should learn how to have real talks: “We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating…we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.” Conversely, the future generations will only be able to build popular online profiles with proper Instagram posts and may not develop simple face-to-face communication skills. This essay aims to analyze how the author establishes logic and emotion in her article to convince the audience that the digitalization age left humanity incapable of being alone and disconnected.
Turkle’s essay states that smartphones changed people’s lives and their personalities. The article commences with the fact that humanity appears to have continuous conversations: “We text (and shop and go on Facebook) during classes and when we’re on dates.” Moreover, the young generation learned a new impressive skill of maintaining eye contact and texting, allowing them, metaphorically, to be in several places at the same time. The author claims that the modern world became accustomed to this pace, but she warns that we may end up isolated from one another in the pursuit of always staying online.
Indeed, this scenario became applicable to virtually anyone, from a clerk to a company CEO. Teenagers grew up with these technologies; thus, many of them lack proper communication abilities that were replaced with posts, tweets, laptops, smartphones, and iPods. The author laments that offices are full of people, but all of them seem to be protected with their large earphones. It is probably more complicated now because air pods made the problem almost invisible but did not eliminate it.
The primary tool utilized by the author to establish logic and unfold emotions in this essay is a comparison between online and face-to-face conversations. The author claims that people prefer texting and social media posts more than an authentic connection because the former can be easily controlled. Specifically, she states that “texting … and posting let us present the self we want to be … we can edit … we can delete…or retouch.” Furthermore, texts and posts receive an immediate reaction, initiating a wave of neurotransmitter release and creating positive emotions. In contrast, offline talks require patience, empathy, and self-control that may degenerate without practice in the future: “Human relationships are … messy and demanding. We have learned the habit of cleaning them up with technology.”
Moreover, real connection requires authenticity and vulnerability, which can be challenging with millions of followers but more comfortable with AI. According to the author’s findings, many people would share their concerns with a robot or Siri than with relatives. Indeed, these facts should be alarming for humanity because the sacred moments of family discussions started to disappear.
In summary, Turkle’s “Flight from Conversation” can be considered a call for action to the global population lost online. People send e-mails or texts instead of having face-to-face talks. Moreover, it became casual to have a large group of people in a silent room because everyone is isolated with earphones. Young generations lack fundamental communication skills; thus, they prefer to speak to a software or a robot than their family members. Finally, the author claims that she is the conversation advocate who suggests making room for old-fashioned dialogues in our digitalized lives.