Alone together sherry turkle summary

She also observed human behavior about the surrounding digital devices and conducted interviews to understand the current status of humanity in the modern culture. She then realized that people are becoming more attached to machines than to fellow humans. ‘Alone together’ is an illustration of how humanity is moving towards what Turkle terms as ‘robotic moment’ due to the advance in technology (2011, p. In reality, the current society is influenced by the current digital error and the companionships and relationships are constantly changing. The current essay is a discussion and argument for Turkle’s view of ‘alone together’ regarding the impacts of technology and social media on human relations. A study conducted by Do and Chun indicated that the use of robots had been adopted in medical rehabilitation therapy (2016, pp. The robots are used to provide both physical and occupational therapies for patients.

Besides, the robots are used to provide care for the old. The medical department in Japan also claims that the assistive robots provide both physical and emotional support to the patients to enhance healing. Thus indicating that the robots are soon replacing the humans (12). People are getting too much attached to social networks that they forget the importance of face to face interactions and communications. The arguments behind the love for social networking are that real people are unreliable, stressful and time-consuming as opposed to online and imaginary people who communicate without providing emotional stress. For that reason, American teenagers are addicted to social networking and send lots of text messages on Facebook, Instant Messenger, Instagram, and Emails. Most of the daily hours are spent social networking and not with families and friends.

Funny enough, they consider spending time with families and friends as old fashioned. Therefore, the elderly cannot condemn the social media addiction by their children if they are embracing the use of robots. According to interviews conducted by Turkle on teenagers’ addiction to social networks, plainly there is compulsive behavior amongst youths. People think that with social networks and technology they have control over their lives, but instead, technology and social media is taking control of people’s behaviors. Youths cannot stay a few hours offline because of addiction. Without their phones, they feel disconnected from the world even with friends and families around them. For instance, an accident happens on the road, and instead of calling for emergency help, people are busy taking pictures of the injured full of blood and racked vehicles and posting in Facebook, before calling for help.

Later on, the injured people will die eventually because of delayed treatment, which is the worst effect of social media addiction in the digital generation. Additionally, they enjoy posting humiliations in the media without minding personal opinions and privacy just to gain an audience. In the old age, privacy mattered, and people cared for one another. In the modern culture, people care much about social media audience than their neighbors’ lives, which is an indication of loss of humanity. Regarding professional sectors, ‘alone together’ is present in offices and institutions such as schools and hospitals, due to technology use and social networking. According to a research conducted by Domingo and Garganté, (2016, pp. there are available mobile apps that are used in classroom teaching with all the information required. Students also are allowed to use these apps during teaching hours, thus reducing the engagement of student to student and teacher to student for purposes of discussions.

Other students for that matter, even quit attending classes and have their learning online in the apps. Owolabi et al. reported that 23 percent of doctors are using mobile health apps to deliver health care services (2018, pp. Even though others claim that mobile health use is a way of improving healthcare deliveries and services, it is apparent that with the use of mobile health apps by doctors, the unity and togetherness in discussing healthcare problems are diminishing. Furthermore, using health app to attend to a patient is an indication of lack of knowledge in the medical field. Theories explaining effects social media and technology The increasing social media usage attracted development of its engagement theory to facilitate the understanding of how social media has altered behaviors of individual users in the modern society.

The main point of SME theory is that the degree of engagement in social media platform is an indication of the rate at which one is disconnected from participating in real-world activities such as making real friends. The social media becomes the platform that they feel co-created to and a place where they can attain personal needs interests and desires (62). These behaviors are reducing human interactions, and the humanity is declining. Therefore we are constantly creating ‘alone together’ situations with the engagement in social media. Apart from SME theory, McNeill and Briggs, (2014) discussed Agenda-setting, Social norms and Social representations theories, that provide an extensive idea concerning social media use and its present impacts on humanity. As discussed above, social media usage and technology have impacted humanity in various ways and different sectors of human interactions.

In education, there is a disconnection between student to student and teacher-student relations due to use of mobile apps in classroom teaching. In the health sector, there is constant use of mobile health apps for a prescription which has altered doctor-patient and doctor-doctor interactions. In the social world, people value their digital devices more than family and friends. They spend much time social networking than interacting with friends. M. and Wasko, M. M. Social media engagement theory: Exploring the influence of user engagement on social media usage.  Journal of Organizational and End User Computing (JOEUC), 28(2), pp. Exploring the use of educational technology in primary education: Teachers' perception of mobile technology learning impacts and applications' use in the classroom.  Computers in Human Behavior, 56, pp. Jagoe, E. L. Depersonalised intimacy: the cases of Sherry Turkle and Spike Jonze, English Studies in Canada, 42(1), p.

In Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web (pp. ACM. Ngai, E. W. Tao, S. A. and Onigbogi, O. O. mHealth: Knowledge and use among doctors and nurses in public secondary health-care facilities of Lagos, Nigeria.  Journal of Clinical Sciences, 15(1), p. Social media tools adoption and use by SMEs: An empirical study. In Social Media and Networking: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications(pp. IGI Global.