CONNECTED BUT ALONE

By: Sherry Turkle

1. What is the message?

To begin with, Sherry Turkle is a TED Talk speaker who brings about the idea of being,
“Connected but Alone.” This means that we prefer texting versus talking because we
want connection instead of conversation. The feeling of being alone or that no one is
listening frightens us, so we are, "tempted by machines that offer companionship." She
says that cell phones, "don't only change what we do, they change who we are"
because we, "expect more from technology and less from each other." As humans, we
like to be in control and be able to focus our attention where we want to, when we want
to. We can also focus it how we want to, or as she calls it, the Goldilocks effect. As our
cell phones are constantly with us, we can be, "alone together."

2. Technique used to convey message

Pathos:

In Sherry Turkle's speech connected, but alone, she uses the emotions of the
audience, to get her point across about how to much texting can be bad for people.
She uses her body motion to help get her point across. Sherry helps relate to the emotions
of the people in the audience by using examples from her own life, and from her
coworker’s life's. Sherry also uses pictures in her speech of people being in a crowded
room on their phones disconnected from everyone around them. Using pictures in the
speech can help play on people's emotions and help them to visualize what she is talking
about. Sherry Turkle's speech can be related to Robert J. Connors article The Differences
Between Speech and Writing, when he mentions in his section on pathos "The speaker
can relate to the audience with a fairly certain knowledge of its response (Connors)." This
can be related to the emotion of Sherry's speech, because she can go off the audience’s
response to her speech by changing her pace, changing how she how she mentions
something in her speech.

Ethos:

Sherry Turkle can be shown as trustworthy, when she is giving her speech during
the Ted Talks, because this is her second time giving a speech at a Ted Talk. She can also
be considered trustworthy, because her speech is relatable. If you look at when she says
we're "connected, but alone" you can relate that to society around you. For example,
when you look at a young group of teenagers hanging out together, most of them tend
to be on their phones; so, their connected, yet their still alone. Sherry Turkle could be
considered trustworthy, because of how relatable her speech is. The differences that can
be made between speech and writing when looking at ethos are, that "a speaker can
form an ethical appeal with hand gestures, and their physical appearance, whereas a
writer only has the style in which they choose to make their argument (Connors)".

Logos:

Sherry Turkle's speech can be related to logos because everything she says, she has
to be careful of how she speaks each word so that it is not lost and gone forever, where
as a writer just has to repeat themselves a few times to get their point across, whereas a
speaker has to get their point across then or it's forever lost. Sherry uses her body motion
to try to get her point across even more, so that it will stick in her audience's mind.

3. What points of Sherry Turkle struck you the most?

“We’re lonely, but we’re afraid of intimacy.” This is the most profound quote that stuck
with me after watching Sherry Turkle’s presentation: connected, but alone? One
example that comes to mind is dating websites that help facilitate love connections
between individuals seeking a relationship or other interaction. It appears some
individuals on dating websites are lonely but choose to seek technological rather than
physical interactions. I believe face-to-face communication can be slower, more
thought-out, challenging and more satisfying than text messaging – which can be cryptic
and misrepresentative of what we are truly attempting to say to one another. It is evident
that technology, and texting has certainly led to an obsession with controlling and limiting
others’ access to our thoughts that, historically, we would reveal in person. I agree with
many of her arguments. I can certainly relate to the desire to want to be with people,
but only in amounts that I feel comfortable with, depending on the person. This is a
downfall of modern society in that there is too much editing of our self-created
personality and even of our physical features. Sacrificing conversation for mere
connection, as Sherry Turkle states, ultimately leads to our own solitude, but lack of self-
reflection at the same time. “The illusion of companionship without the demands of
friendship” will lead this generation to become dependent on technology to form
relationships. I enjoyed the fact that Sherry Turkle did not condemn the use of technology,
admitting how much she used it on a daily basis herself. Instead, she highlighted key issues
with intimacy, bond-forming, and communication that both she and those around her
have experienced.