Connected but alone Sherry Turkle
just a moment ago my daughter Rebecca
texted me for good luck her text said
mom you will rock I love this getting
that text it was like getting a hug and
so there you have it I embody the
central paradox I’m a woman who loves
getting texts who’s going to tell you
that too many of them can be a problem
actually that reminder of my daughter
brings me to the beginning of my story
1996 when I gave my first TED talk
Rebecca was five years old and she was
sitting right there in the front row I
had just written a book that celebrated
our life on the Internet and I was about
to be on the cover of Wired magazine in
those heady days we were experimenting
with chat rooms and online virtual
communities we were exploring different
aspects of ourselves and then we
unplugged
I was excited and as a psychologist what
excited me most was the idea that we
would use what we learned in the virtual
world about ourselves about our identity
to live better lives in the real world
now fast forward to 2012 I’m back here
on the Ted stage again my daughter’s 20
she’s a college student she sleeps with
her cell phone
so do I and I’ve just written a new book
but this time it’s not one that will get
me on the cover of Wired magazine so
what happened I’m still excited by
technology but I believe and I’m here to
make the case that we’re letting it take
us places that we don’t want to go over
the past 15 years I’ve
studied technologies of mobile
communication and I’ve interviewed
hundreds and hundreds of people young
and old about their plugged-in lives and
what I’ve found is that our little
devices those little devices in our
pockets are so psychologically powerful
that they don’t only change what we do
they change who we are some of the
things we do now with our devices are
things that only a few years ago we
would have found odd or disturbing but
they’ve quickly come to seem familiar
just how we do things so just to take
some quick examples people text or do
email during corporate board meetings
they text and shop and go on Facebook
during classes during presentations
actually during all meetings people talk
to me about the important new skill of
making eye contact while you’re texting
people explain to me that it’s hard but
that it can be done parents text and do
email at breakfast and a dinner well
their children complain about not having
their parents full attention but then
these same children deny each other
their full attention this is a recent
shot of my daughter and her friends
being together while not being together
and we even texted funerals I study this
we remove ourselves from our grief or
from our reverie and we go into our
phones why does this matter it matters
to me because I think we’re setting
ourselves up for trouble trouble
certainly in how we relate to each other
but also trouble in how we relate to
ourselves in our capacity for
self-reflection we’re getting used to a
new way of being alone together people
want to be with each other but also
elsewhere connected to all the different
places they want to be people want to
customize their lives they want to go in
and out of all the places they are
because the thing that matters most to
them is control over where they put
their attention so you want to go to
that board meeting but you only want to
pay attention to the bits that interest
you and some people think that’s a good
thing but you can end up hiding from
each other even as we’re all constantly
connected to each other 50 year old
businessman laments to me that he feels
he doesn’t have colleagues anymore at
work when he goes to work he doesn’t
stop by to talk to anybody he doesn’t
call and he says he doesn’t want to
interrupt his colleagues because he says
they’re too busy on their email but then
he stops himself and he says you know
I’m not telling you the truth I’m the
one who doesn’t want to be interrupted I
think I should want to but actually I’d
rather just do things on my blackberry
across the generations I see that people
can’t get enough of each other if and
only if they can have each other at a
distance in amounts they can control I
call it the Goldilocks effect not too
close not too far just right but what
might feel just right for that
middle-aged executive can be a problem
for an adolescent who needs to develop
face-to-face relationships an 18 year
old boy who uses texting for almost
everything says to me wistfully someday
someday but certainly not now I’d like
to learn how to have a conversation when
I ask people what’s wrong with having a
conversation people say I’ll tell you
what’s wrong with having a conversation
it takes place in real time and you
can’t control what you’re going to say
so that’s the bottom line
texting email posting all of these
things let us present the self as we
want to be we get to edit and that means
we get to delete and that means we get
to retouch the face the voice the flesh
the body not too little not too much
just right human relationships are rich
and they’re messy and they’re demanding
and we clean them up with technology and
when we do one of the things that can
happen is that we sacrifice conversation
for mere connection we shortchange
ourselves and over time we seem to
forget this or we seem to stop caring I
was caught off guard when Stephen
Colbert asked me a profound question a
profound question he said
don’t all those little tweets don’t all
those little sips of online
communication add up to one big gulp of
real conversation my answer was no they
don’t add up connecting and sips may
work for gathering discrete bits of
information they may work for saying I’m
thinking about you or even for saying I
love you I mean look at how I felt when
I got that text from my daughter but
they don’t really work for learning
about each other for really coming to
know and understand each other and we
use conversations with each other to
learn how to have conversations with
ourselves so a flight from conversation
can really matter because it can
compromise our capacity for
self-reflection for kids growing up that
skill is the bedrock of development over
and over I hear I would rather text than
talk and what I’m seeing is that people
get so used to being shortchanged out of
real conversation so used to getting by
with less that they become almost
willing to dispense with people
altogether so for example many people
share with me this wish that some day a
more advanced version of Siri the
digital assistant on Apple’s iPhone will
be more like a best friend someone who
will listen when others won’t
I believe this wish reflects a painful
truth that I’ve learned in the past 15
years that feeling that no one is
listening to me is very important in our
relationships with technology that’s why
it’s so appealing to have a Facebook
page or Twitter feed so many automatic
listeners and the feeling that no one is
listening to me makes us want to spend
time
machines that seem to care about us
we’re developing robots they call them
sociable robots that are specifically
designed to be companions to the elderly
to our children
to us have we so lost confidence that we
will be there for each other during my
research I worked in nursing homes and I
brought in the sociable robots that were
designed to give the elderly the feeling
that they were understood and one day I
came in and a woman who had lost a child
was talking to a robot in the shape of a
baby seal it seemed to be looking in her
eyes it seemed to be following the
conversation it comforted her and many
people found this amazing but that woman
was trying to make sense of her life
with a machine that had no experience of
the arc of a human life that robot put
on a great show and we’re vulnerable
people experienced pretend empathy as
though it were the real thing so during
that moment when that woman was
experiencing that pretend empathy I was
thinking that robot can’t empathize it
doesn’t face death it doesn’t know life
and as that woman took comfort in her
robot companion I didn’t find it amazing
I found it one of the most wrenching
complicated moments in my 15 years of
work but when I stepped back I felt
myself at the cold hard center of a
perfect storm we expect more from
technology and less from each other and
I ask myself why have things come to
this and I believe it’s because
technology appeals to us most where we
are most vulnerable
and we are vulnerable we’re lonely but
we’re afraid of intimacy and so from
social networks to sociable robots we’re
designing technologies that will give us
the illusion of companionship without
the demands of friendship we turn to
technology to help us feel connected in
ways we can comfortably control but
we’re not so comfortable we are not so
much in control these days those phones
in our pockets are changing our minds
and hearts because they offer us three
gratifying fantasies one that we can put
our attention wherever we want it to be
to that we will always be heard and
three that we will never have to be
alone and that third idea that we will
never have to be alone is central to
changing our psyches because the moment
the people are alone even for a few
seconds they become anxious they panic
they fidget they reach for a device just
think of people at a checkout line or to
red light being alone feels like a
problem that needs to be solved and so
people try to solve it by connecting but
here connection is more like a symptom
than a cure it expresses but it doesn’t
solve an underlying problem but more
than a symptom constant connection is
changing the way people think of
themselves it’s shaping a new way of
being the best way to describe it is I
share therefore I am we use technology
to define ourselves by sharing our
thoughts and feelings even as we’re
having them so before it was I have a
feeling I want to make a call now it’s I
want to have a feeling I need to send a
text the problem with this new regime of
I share therefore I am is that if we
don’t have connection we don’t feel like
ourselves we almost don’t feel ourselves
so what do we do we connect more and
more but in the process
set ourselves up to be isolated how do
you get from connection to isolation you
end up isolated if you don’t cultivate
the capacity for solitude the ability to
be separate to gather yourself solitude
is where you find yourself so that you
can reach out to other people and form
real attachments when we don’t have the
capacity for solitude we turn to other
people in order to feel less anxious or
in order to feel alive when this happens
we’re not able to appreciate who they
are it’s as though we’re using them as
spare parts to support our fragile sense
of self we slip into thinking that
always being connected is going to make
us feel less alone but we’re at risk
because actually it’s the opposite
that’s true if we’re not able to be
alone we’re going to be more lonely and
if we don’t teach our children to be
alone they’re only going to know how to
be lonely when I spoke at Ted in 1996
reporting on my studies of the early
virtual communities I said those who
make the most of their lives on the
screen come to it in a spirit of self
reflection and that’s what I’m calling
for here now reflection and more than
that a conversation about where our
current use of technology may be taking
us us what it might be costing us
we’re smitten with technology and we’re
afraid like young lovers the too much
talking might spoil the romance but it’s
time to talk we grew up with digital
technology and so we see it as all grown
up but it’s not it’s early days there’s
plenty of time for us to reconsider how
we use it how we build it I’m not
suggesting that we turn away from our
devices just that we develop a more
self-aware relationship with them with
each other and with ourselves I see some
first step
start thinking of Solitude as a good
thing make room for it find ways to
demonstrate this as a value to your
children create sacred spaces at home
the kitchen the dining room and reclaim
them for conversation do the same thing
at work at work we’re so busy
communicating that we often don’t have
time to think we don’t have some time to
talk about the things that really matter
change that most important we all really
need to listen to each other including
to the boring bits because it’s when we
stumble or hesitate or lose our words
that we reveal ourselves to each other
technology is making a bid to redefine
human connection how we care for each
other how we care for ourselves but it’s
also giving us the opportunity to affirm
our values and our direction I’m
optimistic we have everything we need to
start we have each other and we have the
greatest chance of success if we
recognize our vulnerability that we
listen when technology says it will take
something complicated and promises
something simpler so in my work I hear
that life is hard
relationships are filled with risk and
then there’s technology simpler hopeful
optimistic every young it’s like calling
in the cavalry an ad campaign promises
that online and with avatars you can
quote finally love your friends love
your body love your life online and with
avatars
we’re drawn to virtual romance to
computer games that seem like worlds to
the idea that robots robots will someday
be our true companions
we spend an evening on the social
network instead of going to the pub with
friends but our fantasies of
substitution have cost us now we all
need to focus on the many many ways
technology can lead us back to our real
lives our own bodies our own communities
our own politics our own planet
they need us let’s talk about how we can
use digital technology the technology of
our dreams to make this life the life we
can love thank you
you