It has become obvious that technology has been increasingly advancing in this century. Although most people would agree that technology has made a positive impact in society if we do not know how to manage it, technology can take over our lives. Social media is slowly taking over the world and it is affecting and hurting our relationships and the way we communicate with each other. It used to be really common for people to have conversations and socialize in mundane situations such as waiting for appointments and waiting for public transportation. Now, the "smartphone" makes an appearance, and we spend our time sending e-mails and interacting with our phones instead of interacting with others.
In the excerpt "Connectivity and Its Discontents" from the book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, Professor of Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT Sherry Turkle discusses how technology has taken over communication. According to Turkle, "these days, whether you are online or not, it is easy for people to end up unsure if they are closer together or further apart." Thanks to the various methods of network communication we have, we can make it possible to communicate in an easier way in our busy lives. But there is a downside to this. She gives an example of a woman she met called Ellen. She explains how thanks to the free service that Skype offers, Ellen was able to communicate more frequently with her grandmother avoiding costly phone calls. But, instead of interacting with her grandmother, she was actually sending e-mails and doing other stuff without her grandmother noticing. She was not paying full attention to their conversation. Due to the advancement of technology, a lot of communication methods let us multitask and do other things while we are communicating with someone. We can be making a call and speaking with someone and at the same time sending texts and emails, even browsing the web without the other person noticing.
