Last Group Assignment

Here is finally our blog post!

Our assignment was to analyse TED talk by Sherry Turkle -video with the help of following questions.

1. What does “alone together” mean?

Alone together means that even if you are with other people, you can still be "alone" cause not everyone is paying their full attention on you, because they are using their technology devices. To be "alone together" means to be physically close to someone, but mentally distant; it means to separate from our reality by diving into technological reality.

2. Have you noticed symptoms of this in your daily life or surroundings?

Yes, we have noticed these symptoms in our everyday life. For example students often use their phones on lectures and many people text etc. while having a cup of coffee with friends. Few times we have even seen couples in a restaurant, that were just sitting there with their phones without paying any attention to each other. Also quite alarming is seeing parents pay more attention to their phones than each other or even their kids. 

3. Is Sherry Turkle´s vision on technology more utopian or dystopian? How do you relate to that, does her talk appeal to you?

We think that her vision is more dystopian. We think that her points are interesting and agree with most of them. For example it is totally crazy that some youngsters don´t know how to have a proper face-to-face conversation.

 “We expect more from technology and less from each other": she wants to tell us that technology can change not only what we do but also what we are. We have lost the confidence in real life conversations  and we are attracted to new virtual worlds in which we believe to receive what is lacking in the real life: the control.

I.A & MM