Journal 5

Turkle, S. (2007). Forbes Magazine, May 2007. Can you hear me now?

The theme of this article is how we are losing the ability to focus on their real world activities, that they are drifting in and out of engagement with people they are presently with, because they are constantly interacting with the virtual world. We are constantly checking email on their Blackberries or iPhones, talking on their cell phones, listening to voicemail, sending and checking for text messages, using laptops in the cafe to surf the internet, all at the expense of dealing with the here and now, the present reality they are in. We may spend more time living a virtual life - Second Life, or MySpace or Facebook, online video games - than in our real lives - living in , or playing video games online that these virtual lives take over. We become so dependent on the virtual dimension to our lives that when something goes wrong with the technology - i.e. the connection is lost - we panic, start feeling isolated, no longer connected.

As a result, we split our attention to such an extent that we are losing the time to think and reflect on the real world events. We no longer just sit down to relax and think about things, without interruption from a new email or text message alert. As adults who grew up before the digital-age, we often may think and worry about these things. For children today growing up, these interactions with the virtual world are more natural and normal, and as Turkle points out, they may never know any other way.

1. Is all this a bad thing for us? In many ways it is. I think it causes stress and anxiety that shouldn't really be there. There are plenty of causes of stress and anxiety in our lives, we don't need to add to them. Why do some people feel it necessary to check their email every 5 minutes, and act on it immediately, for example?

2. Have these communication technologies improved our lives? They have, because communication is easier and we can plans things more efficiently. But the overuse and obsession we have with them has deteriorated the quality of our life.