More connected and more alienated than ever

Sherry Turkle on Forbes.com has an amazingly insightful article on how people who live in this culture, because of technology, are more connected than ever and more alienated than ever. It will speak to you and it will speak to you about the students you serve.

Can You Hear Me Now? - The opening illustration is priceless. This is a must read this week and worthy of several posts to process all she says. Two quick quotes that grabbed me on this Tuesday:

"The self that grows up with multitasking and rapid response measures success by calls made, e-mails answered and messages responded to. Self-esteem is calibrated by what the technology proposes, by what it makes easy. We live a contradiction: Insisting that our world is increasingly complex, we nevertheless have created a communications culture that has decreased the time available for us to sit and think, uninterrupted. We are primed to receive a quick message to which we are expected to give a rapid response. Children growing up with this may never know another way. Their experience raises a question for us all: Are we leaving enough time to take our time on the things that matter?"

"Adolescents naturally want to check out ideas and attitudes with peers. But when technology brings us to the point where we're used to sharing thoughts and feelings instantaneously, it can lead to a new dependence. Emotional life can move from "I have a feeling, I want to call a friend," to "I want to feel something, I need to make a call." In either case it comes at the expense of cultivating the ability to be alone and to manage and contain one's emotions."

Thoughts?