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Technology Creating a Better World? Advancements in technology are supposed to make our lives easier. The time it takes for us to travel to another destination continues to shorten. Computers continue to advance at a rapid pace. Communicating with family and friends from another country has become easier than ever. It would seem as if everything is perfect. However, that is not the case at all. The irony of it all is that inventions that were supposed to make us connected to people close to us have actually had the opposite effect. Devices such as mobile phones, tablets, television, and laptops are just a few inventions that have us obsessed over them during our free time. With the advent of social media, we have become more engrossed in our own little world. People spend more time on social media and gadgets than actual face to face interactions between human beings. Two writers attempted to explain this phenomenon in their essays. “The Flight from Conversation”, by Sherry Turkle, explains how and why people are shying away from real life conversations because of gadgets and the internet. “The Multitasking Generation”, by Claudia Wallis, explores the same subject, but she goes a step further and discusses a more serious problem: Multitasking is actually making us more distant and less efficient. Turkle and Wallis share the same attitude in the direction that society is heading towards. The examples both authors use overlap each other’s. However, Wallis’ essay presents a sense of urgency and seriousness that Turkle’s essay does not. One of the main similarities in both essays is how each author describes people’s obsession with technology and social media. Both authors open the essays describing the setting in homes these days. Turkle opens her essay by saying “At home, families sit together, texting and reading e-mail” (Turkle 2). Wallis opens her essay by describing the scene at the Cox household. Her second paragraph describes it best by saying “By all


Cited: List Turkle, Sherry. "The Flight from Conversation". Reading Critically, Writing Well. Ed. Rise B. Axelrod, Charles R. Cooper, and Alison M. Warriner. 10th ed. New York: Bedford St. Martin 's, 2013. 344-337. Print. Wallis, Claudia. "The Multitasking Generation". Reading Critically, Writing Well. Ed. Rise B. Axelrod, Charles R. Cooper, and Alison M. Warriner. 10th ed. New York: Bedford St. Martin 's, 2013. 385-396. Print.
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