“the Chimera of Connection”

PASCUAL, CARIZA NICOLE C.                                                                 BSY11

“The Chimera of Connection”

Technology is a powerful means of communication, especially in shaping our modern relationships – with others, with ourselves, and even with it. Through technological advancement, the world becomes open for connectivity among every individual. Apparently, it is so surprising that these virtually-encoded devices bring us a whole lot of convenience in terms of casual conversation, interaction among businesses, politics, and even global activism – a channel that encompasses unity in diversity. In the speech of Sherry Turkle, a psychologist and scientist, at Ted Talks, it implies several meaningful insights regarding the effects of technology in the past, today’s, and to the future generation – the basis of this this paper. As digital citizens, we utilize our electronic gadgets and technological devices as if it is incorporated in our daily lives – like a basic necessity. With that, being born in the era of digitalization, having the ability to connect with the vast pool of people, which allow us to navigate the world right with just our fingertips, is deemed to be a privilege. However, too much technology dependence, in which a certain individual’s full attention is continuously hinging into overabundance of our mobile devices, changes the way how people perceive themselves and how they communicate. Thus, these gadgets become a chain that binds us with technology, where we lock ourselves in cells of anonymity in a technology-driven world. Hence, the paradox of being connected through technology is painted with interconnectedness yet with just an illusion of companionship and togetherness.

Technology is psychologically powerful that it alters our perception of who we are and how we connect with others. As a psychologist, Sherry Turkle perceived the increasing effect of technology among people’s lives in a psychological embedded way; thus, she dig deeper into the extremities of its abundant effect regarding its causes on the behavior and the way of thinking of people. For me, it is a great instrument to use her psychological knowledge and experiences in explicating how technology becomes influential as it progresses. With that, as I have seen in the video, she deeply illustrated not only the facts about the interrelation of technology and human, but her stance and her own viewpoint as well; she adequately implied both her objective and subjective perspective regarding the matter as an influential psychologist. Just like what Turkle has said, technology becomes dominant over human identity when our minds meet the machines. Over the past years, using our gadgets and mobile devices daily, it heavily impacts our identity and relationship with others. Technology gives power to people to shape themselves virtually; it gives them the leverage to customize their real selves and present the unauthentic, but the best, version of themselves online. Optimistically, it seems like a good thing – good for talking to new people, and even applying to a certain job or education – because people got to know the best in you. With that, we create a world where we can perceive ourselves as deemed to be more desirable; hence, builds up more of our confidence. For instance, when sending an email, one cannot blunder or even look clumsy over their words, in which it allows someone to construct their words appropriately without or with little flaws. Also, we could see some people that seem to be living their best life by judging their Instagram feed. However, looking behind their screens, we cannot fathom how they struggle up in their lives. Looking closely, when putting a façade, technology is plethorically useful because the burden of carrying a face-to-face conversation does not exist. People can easily attract friends, employers, and even romantic partners through the mask created by technology; a mask that castrate our identity and connection with others.

The idea of being connected creates an ironic perspective of “so close yet so far”. This topic sentence is correlated with the Goldilocks effect discussed by Sherry Turkle. How she presented it using a concrete phenomenon, as well as using actual examples makes her speech more astonishing and credible. With that, as she talk, we did not only get to listen attentively, but we were able to immerse ourselves on the concept she was trying to inculcate in us. Thus, her speech is effectively delivered among her audiences through the insightful contexts she conveyed. These meaningful insights encompass how technology affects the overall generation of people. Bluntly speaking, while we are connected to technology, we unconsciously remove our body and disconnect our mind from the reality. Indeed, through technology, everywhere we are, we are connected in the world through our mobile devices and gadgets. However, this one point Turkle has brought up, “We expect more from technology and less from each other,” is a good reflection on how technology molded up our conversation nowadays. It portrays how the society becomes bonded and plunged into technology, and begin to have a life of being connected virtually, instead of having a face-to-face real-life conversations. With the heavy reliance on disembodied interactions, we are giving dominion on technology to take us places where we do not want to go – a place of isolation. For instance, instead of having personal interaction, there are some people that even if they are with their families and friends, they rather focus on their phones – being together, while not being together. Ironically, people tend to think that they are enjoying other people’s company, but most of the time, they simply incorporate themselves virtually and lose focus on the reality. As we could see, people do not get to give their full attention to the people around them. Thus, these people – family, friends, and co-workers – are not given the attention they needed, in which they feel neglected. Our social interactions are contaminated with a bacterial influence of technology that mainly affects our reality because a life without it for communication has been already forgotten by most of us. However, the idea of interacting through technology disconnected us in the real world around us by