Sherry Turkle, March 2012
Just a moment ago,my daughter Rebecca texted me for good luck.Her text said,”Mom, you will rock.”I love this.Getting that textwas like getting a hug.And so there you have it.I embodythe central paradox.I’m a womanwho loves getting textswho’s going to tell youthat too many of them can be a problem.
Actually that reminder of my daughterbrings me to the beginning of my story.1996, when I gave my first TEDTalk,Rebecca was five years oldand she was sitting right therein the front row.I had just written a bookthat celebrated our life on the internetand I was about to be on the coverof Wired magazine.In those heady days,we were experimentingwith 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 mostwas the ideathat we would use what we learned in the virtual worldabout 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 cellphone,so do I.And I’ve just written a new book,but this time it’s not onethat will get me on the coverof 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 placesthat we don’t want to go.
Over the past 15 years,I’ve studied technologies of mobile communicationand I’ve interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people,young and old,about their plugged in lives.And what I’ve foundis that our little devices,those little devices in our pockets,are so psychologically powerfulthat they don’t only change what we do,they change who we are.Some of the things we do now with our devicesare things that, only a few years ago,we would have found oddor 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 emailduring corporate board meetings.They text and shop and go on Facebookduring classes, during presentations,actually during all meetings.People talk to me about the important new skillof making eye contactwhile you’re texting.(Laughter)People explain to methat it’s hard, but that it can be done.Parents text and do emailat breakfast and at dinnerwhile their children complainabout not having their parents’ full attention.But then these same childrendeny each other their full attention.This is a recent shotof my daughter and her friendsbeing togetherwhile not being together.And we even text at funerals.I study this.We remove ourselvesfrom our grief or from our reveryand we go into our phones.
Why does this matter?It matters to mebecause I think we’re setting ourselves up for trouble –trouble certainlyin how we relate to each other,but also troublein how we relate to ourselvesand our capacity for self-reflection.We’re getting used to a new wayof 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 arebecause the thing that matters most to themis control over where they put their attention.So you want to go to that board meeting,but you only want to pay attentionto the bits that interest you.And some people think that’s a good thing.But you can end uphiding from each other,even as we’re all constantly connected to each other.
A 50-year-old business manlamented to methat 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 colleaguesbecause, he says, “They’re too busy on their email.”But then he stops himselfand 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 ifthey 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 rightfor that middle-aged executivecan be a problem for an adolescentwho needs to develop face-to-face relationships.An 18-year-old boywho uses texting for almost everythingsays 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 timeand you can’t control what you’re going to say.”So that’s the bottom line.Texting, email, posting,all of these thingslet 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 relationshipsare rich and they’re messyand they’re demanding.And we clean them up with technology.And when we do,one of the things that can happenis that we sacrifice conversationfor mere connection.We short-change ourselves.And over time,we seem to forget this,or we seem to stop caring.
I was caught off guardwhen Stephen Colbertasked me a profound question,a profound question.He said, “Don’t all those little tweets,don’t all those little sipsof online communication,add up to one big gulpof real conversation?”My answer was no,they don’t add up.Connecting in sips may workfor gathering discreet 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 feltwhen I got that text from my daughter –but they don’t really workfor learning about each other,for really coming to know and understand each other.And we use conversations with each otherto learn how to have conversationswith ourselves.So a flight from conversationcan really matterbecause it can compromiseour 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 seeingis that people get so used to being short-changedout of real conversation,so used to getting by with less,that they’ve become almost willingto 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 listenwhen others won’t.I believe this wishreflects a painful truththat I’ve learned in the past 15 years.That feeling that no one is listening to meis very importantin our relationships with technology.That’s why it’s so appealingto have a Facebook pageor a Twitter feed –so many automatic listeners.And the feeling that no one is listening to memake us want to spend timewith 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 confidencethat we will be there for each other?During my researchI worked in nursing homes,and I brought in these sociable robotsthat were designed to give the elderlythe feeling that they were understood.And one day I came inand a woman who had lost a childwas talking to a robotin 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 lifewith a machine that had no experienceof the arc of a human life.That robot put on a great show.And we’re vulnerable.People experience pretend empathyas though it were the real thing.So during that momentwhen that womanwas 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 comfortin her robot companion,I didn’t find it amazing;I found it one of the most wrenching, complicated momentsin my 15 years of work.But when I stepped back,I felt myselfat the cold, hard centerof a perfect storm.We expect more from technologyand less from each other.And I ask myself,”Why have things come to this?”
And I believe it’s becausetechnology appeals to us mostwhere 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 technologiesthat will give us the illusion of companionshipwithout the demands of friendship.We turn to technology to help us feel connectedin ways we can comfortably control.But we’re not so comfortable.We are not so much in control.
These days, those phones in our pocketsare changing our minds and heartsbecause they offer usthree gratifying fantasies.One, that we can put our attentionwherever we want it to be;two, 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 that 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 lineor at a red light.Being alone feels like a problem that needs to be solved.And so people try to solve it by connecting.But here, connectionis 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 changingthe 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 ourselvesby sharing our thoughts and feelingseven 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 regimeof “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,we set ourselves up to be isolated.
How do you get from connection to isolation?You end up isolatedif you don’t cultivate the capacity for solitude,the ability to be separate,to gather yourself.Solitude is where you find yourselfso that you can reach out to other peopleand form real attachments.When we don’t have the capacity for solitude,we turn to other people in order to feel less anxiousor in order to feel alive.When this happens,we’re not able to appreciate who they are.It’s as though we’re using themas spare partsto support our fragile sense of self.We slip into thinking that always being connectedis 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 knowhow to be lonely.
When I spoke at TED in 1996,reporting on my studiesof the early virtual communities,I said, “Those who make the mostof their lives on the screencome to it in a spirit of self-reflection.”And that’s what I’m calling for here, now:reflection and, more than that, a conversationabout where our current use of technologymay be taking us,what it might be costing us.We’re smitten with technology.And we’re afraid, like young lovers,that too much talking might spoil the romance.But it’s time to talk.We grew up with digital technologyand so we see it as all grown up.But it’s not, it’s early days.There’s plenty of timefor us to reconsider how we use it,how we build it.I’m not suggestingthat we turn away from our devices,just that we develop a more self-aware relationshipwith them, with each otherand with ourselves.
I see some first steps.Start thinking of solitudeas a good thing.Make room for it.Find ways to demonstrate thisas 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 communicatingthat we often don’t have time to think,we don’t have 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 stumbleor hesitate or lose our wordsthat we reveal ourselves to each other.
Technology is making a bidto redefine human connection –how we care for each other,how we care for ourselves –but it’s also giving us the opportunityto affirm our valuesand our direction.I’m optimistic.We have everything we need to start.We have each other.And we have the greatest chance of successif we recognize our vulnerability.That we listenwhen technology saysit will take something complicatedand 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, ever-young.It’s like calling in the cavalry.An ad campaign promisesthat online and with avatars,you can “Finally, love your friendslove 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 networkinstead of going to the pub with friends.
But our fantasies of substitutionhave cost us.Now we all need to focuson the many, many waystechnology can lead us backto our real lives, our own bodies,our own communities,our own politics,our own planet.They need us.Let’s talk abouthow we can use digital technology,the technology of our dreams,to make this lifethe life we can love.
Thank you.
