Sherry Turkle Phones

In Sherry Turkle’s article entitled No Need to Call (2011), Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld’s article entitled The Influencing Machine (2011) and Nicholas Carr’s article entitled Is Google Making Us Stupid? (2008), each author examines how technology affects the way we communicate with others and the way we think. Turkle writes about how we are choosing our phones over people and losing out on face-to-face communication, Gladstone and Neufeld discuss echo chambers and how we can easily block out thoughts we don’t like, and Carr talks about how skim reading on the internet has disrupted the ability to deep read. The purpose of each article is to bring awareness to the dangers technology can have on our lives. Each author wants to reach
Since the use of texting and social media has become more normal, people are beginning to spend their time on their phones as opposed to interacting with their peers. When it comes to texting, there’s not too much pressure. You can take your time and think carefully about what you’re gonna say before you send it. On the phone it’s different; there’s pressure to say the right thing and to keep the conversation going. It’s also time consuming, “it demands their full attention when they don’t want to give it” (Birkenstein, Durst, and Graff 375). Phone calls seem to require a certain amount of time and commitment, something people seem to have neither of, and that’s why people would rather send a quick text or email than take time out of their busy day to take a call. Staying behind your screen also offers a protection that phone calls don’t. “It’s only on the screen that shy people open up,” Elaine, a teen that Turkle interviewed explains (Birkenstein et al. 373). “It’s a place to hide” (Birkenstein et al. 347). However there’s a danger that comes with that way of thinking; hiding behind social media causes damage to your psyche. In his article, The Dangers of Social Media for the Psyche, David Brunskill warns