Social Norms and the Proliferation of Technology and Internet Services
Readings:
Sherry Turkle, “3 Questions For MIT's Sherry Turkle On Our Device Addiction And Loneliness,” Hartford Courant, https://www(dot)courant(dot)com/opinion/op-ed/hc-op-3-questions-for- sherry-turkle-mit-psychologist-20181020-story.html. Accessed 3 June 2021.
Sherry Turkle, “Authenticity in the Age of Digital Companions,” Interaction Studies, vol. 8, no. 3, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2007, pp. 501–17.
Adam Alter, “Prologue” and “The Rise of Behavioral Addiction” in Irresistible. Penguin, 2017.
Tony D. Sampson, “What Spreads? From Memes and Crowds to the Phantom Events of Desire and Belief” in Virality : Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks. Minnesota, 2012.
Shoshana Zuboff, “The Coup We Are Not Talking About,” New York Times, https://www(dot)nytimes(dot)com/2021/01/29/opinion/sunday/facebook- surveillance-society-technology.html. Accessed 31 Jan. 2021.
Anne Applebaum and Peter Pomerantsev, “The Internet Doesn’t Have to Be Awful,” The Atlantic, April 2021, pp. 40–49.
Lovink, Networks, “Facebook, Anonymity and the Crisis of the Multiple Self” in Networks Without a Cause: A Critique of Social Media. Polity, 2011.
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Weekly Response Three
The discussions presented in this paper follow the examination of the information contained in two articles provided for reading for the week. Respectively they embrace information positing a challenge in the contemporary orientation towards technology changes and overreliance. The articles argue that proliferation of technology and internet services is changing the pre-established social norms. People are becoming more addicted to technology and social media more than their formation of social ties. The selected studies provide a profound reflection on areas that require a change in the daily lives of people, especially the young.
Examination of Article One
Sherry Turkle talks about how robotics and computer systems do not practically tally with authentic companionship. The author postulates that emotions and rationality between the adults and the younger generations is fast deteriorating in the face of computerized concepts like creation of conversational robots (Turkle 502). Society is changing such that reliance on technology causes drift in social ties even within family as a unit (Turkle 503). With the increase in defects caused by psychological imbalances like trauma, suicidal attempts, and depression, many people either switch to computer services like “Eliza Application” created by Joseph Weizenbaum in the late 1990s to gain sympathetic and non-judgmental company (Turkle 502). The application is among many others that are used to engage in human companionship. People with the listed psychological challenges are the most impacted when hibernating from the active communicational discourse. Adopting the computer systems that function to replace the common communicational structures among people denotes the trend often adopted on the use of social media and its addiction to Generation Z and the Millennials.
The assertions that the author makes in comparison of the robotics to psychotherapists points to a distinctive reason on why people rely on machines rather than fellow ordinary people. Dependence of children specifically on computational toys and those seeking therapy from professionals prove that machines don not judge them (Turkle 508). Neither are machines critical about their affairs and emotions like humans. The suppositions posited in the article demarcate a negative trend or distinction from a personal point of view on the use of the computer applications (Turkle 506). Therefore, upon widened reflections on what needs to be done to rectify constructive communication between families, friends, or colleagues, I support devices like robots. Social media networks should be limited in certain settings like the study asserts (Turkle 502). In families, children require a degree of limitation when it comes to access to online services when at home. Through effective rationalization approaches, they need to realize that communication of their needs, affiliations, and aspirations can efficiently take place with humans more than what happens on social media and the internet. The delineation of the study appreciates that changes occur in any society, and technology is the mainstream that catalyzes those changes.
The main arguments of the article show that with impactful discoveries offered by technol...