The Flight From Conversation by Sherry Turkle Article Analysis

In Today’s generation, digital technology plays a huge role in many people’s lives to the point that it has become an addiction people are so glued to their phones that young people do not know how to start a conversation in person or successfully communicate face-to-face. Technology has negatively changed the way people communicate with others which is a source of concerns for Sherry Turkle. Sherry Turkle, a psychologist, and a professor at M.I.T., wrote her article, “The Flight from Conversation,” argues how digital devices and the online world have negatively affected the day-to-day communication between people.

Turkle states we have adapted our conversations by learning how to be “alone together”/ This means that people could be sitting at a table together, but not having a conversation and interact with each other because they are too focused on the mobile devices. This creates a negative aspect because people cannot communicate in person. She believes that conversations that are face-to-face are more significant because they cannot be edited or change what you are going to say. When one thing has been said in a face-to-face discussion, one cannot change their response like in a text message. The online world allows people to escape from feeling alone to the point when they are alone, they feel sense of strange loneliness. And I would agree that people are afraid of being alone, so they use technology as an excuse to not interact and deal with the uneasiness or anxiety of having a face-to-face conversation.

She provides examples by relating her audience, such as her colleagues hiding from on another as they are always connected to one another. A sixteen-year-old boy who is always texting wishes to one day learn how to conversate with others in person. A businessman who would rather be on his blackberry, rather than socialize with people. Furthermore, the author uses these examples to group this evidence through common situations that occur in real life. Turkle emphasizes that technology has influenced people, and she indicates this through dialogue. For example, the last sentence of the sixth paragraph she used dialogue by using quotation marks to show what the sixteen-year-old boy said. This accomplishes, making the reader feel or hear emotion, especially if her or she is also a teenager. Turkle also uses dialogue in the last three sentences on the fifth paragraph, “too busy on their email.” But then he pauses and corrects himself:” I’m not telling the truth. I’m the one who doesn’t want to be interrupted. I think I should. But I’d rather just do things on my BlackBerry.”, To have the relate to how the businessman feel about technology. She uses the dialogue to show a personal loss or sadness, a feeling that they are missing out on something, which relates back to the thesis statement.

Turkle then moves on to state that it would be a better idea for people to turn off their phone every now and then or at least put them aside, so people can show themselves to one another. This conclusion is rather a solution than restating the thesis. The author stated her conclusion this way to make people realize that they need to act in not using technology so much because people are becoming robots.