Turkle

We make our technologies and then our technologies make and shape us. Technology promises a connection and leaves people disappointed Studied a cohort from ages 13-18 Focusing less on the good news - the bounties of social networking- reunions and Arab Spring, etc. None of that is taken away by saying her research (ethnographic and clinical) revealed some human problems and issues in the areas of intimacy, solitude, relationships, attention, and presence and how these manifest themselves in teaching and learning in the digital age. (Thumbs up bringing down dictators, thumbs down texting at funerals) Discontents - why focus on them? They force us to reflect on our underlying values. Can we identify the things that are going amiss and ask where we want them to go? Discontents used to self-reflect can point us towards our deeply held values. -put technology in its place- can make us forget what we know about life (and in the area of education) -fog of technology - is this the kind of technology we want to have around (example - multitasking: turns out nobody can, we just get dopamene from adding tasks as the performance degrades) We need to learn to gather ourselves and uni-task.
 * 1)  What it's like to grow up in the always on culture.
 * 2)  Parents just as much driving children crazy
 * 3)  Tech as the architect of our intimacies
 * 4)  Seductive when its affordances meet our human vulnerabilities
 * 5)  We are lonely - offers the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship
 * 6)  We can control our interaction with it
 * 7)  Substituting connection for conversation
 * 8)  Example - we would rather text than talk
 * 9)  Our lives of connection leave us vulnerable
 * 10)  Too busy communicating to think
 * 11)  ...converse
 * 12)  ...create
 * 13)  Move from conversation to connection
 * 14)  Profound question (asked by Colbert): joked that online connection is learning in little tweets, sips
 * 15)  Don't these add up to the same thing as a conversation, a big gulp of what we used to have?
 * 16)  Answer is no: some kinds of understanding need the give and take of the long form, conversation, the physical presence and eye contact
 * 17)  Not nostalgia but respecting the complexity of people and human emotions
 * 18)  Respecting what we need to say to each other as children grow up and develop, enables attachment
 * 19)  Many young people say they will do anything to avoid conversation.
 * 20)  __We live in a culture that puts greater value on performing a self, rather than being a self__
 * 21)  Facebook, profiles are performing a self
 * 22)  Turkle's development - optimism but…
 * 23)  15 years ago - loved the idea of identity exploration, time out from consequences and freedom to experiment, learn about yourself (identity workshop)
 * 24)  Caveats: people getting stuck
 * 25)  Mantra - use the virtual to enhance the physical (real) world
 * 26)  People used to cycle back into reality (during her early research)
 * 27)  What she didn't see was that we would be wearing the web on us.
 * 28) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Mobile connectivity means we can bail out of the physical world whenever we want, and it turns out that we always want to.
 * 29)  What do we have?
 * 30)  Technology that makes it easy for us to hide - we would rather text than talk
 * 31) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Communicate when we wish
 * 32) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Disengage at will
 * 33) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> "on the telephone, too much shows, texting you can sculpt your responses" lack control of the time
 * 34) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> We can be very unaware of the skills they do not have - we are making the assumption that they have them
 * 35) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> People don't want to talk to others when its easier to deal with people via electronic communication
 * 36) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> There is something about seeing something in a person where you learn whether you can trust them. Something of the real human slips through, even in a performance.
 * 37) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Paradox: we want an instant response- we ask a simpler question in an email that you know you can get an instant response
 * 38) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> We say that our world is increasingly complex, but our communication is getting much more simplistic
 * 39)  What do educators need to attend to?
 * 40)  Life of performance (college apps, facebook)
 * 41) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Orgy of self-presentation (advertising executives)
 * 42)  Tremendous new problems with separation
 * 43) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> (example - if a college student had said 15 years ago…)
 * 44) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Just because it falls within the norm now doesn't mean it isn't disturbing
 * 45) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Adolescents without clear moments of separation are problematic
 * 46)  Possible to almost bypass and move to a sensibility of "I share, therefore I am."
 * 47) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> The validation of a feeling has become part of establishing it
 * 48) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> When you use people this way, you reduce them to your purposes- you take what you need
 * 49) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Movement from inner-directed to outward-directed self
 * 50) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Narcissism: using people as objects to butress our fragile sense of self
 * 51) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Not good for innovation or collaboration, where you need to come to the table with a sense of being a whole
 * 52) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Lost the ability to be alone and gather oneself: __if you don't teach your children to be alone, they will only know how to be lonely. (Loneliness is failed solitude.)__
 * 53) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> This kind of solitude energizes and restores
 * 54) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Growing intolerance for not having a device
 * 55) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> (Thoreau): live deliberately and mindfully, respect solitude, live life but not too thickly; we often feel that we must speak without having anything to say
 * 56)  Final thoughts
 * 57)  Tempted to use the term "addiction"
 * 58) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Good things come by email and text
 * 59) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> The part of our brains that lights up when we see a message on our phones is the part that lights up when we are in love
 * 60)  We will never get rid of these things - they are our partners
 * 61) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> We will, should become better consumers, but we have to get a grip
 * 62) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> No one solution or simple answer
 * 63) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> The life that technology makes easy is not the way we want to live
 * 64)  We are at a great moment of opportunity: people sense that something is amiss.
 * 65) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Does it serve our human purposes
 * 66) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Just because we grew up with the internet, we assume that the internet is all grown up. We tend to see what we have now as the technology in its maturity. ...things are very early...time to make CORRECTIONS.
 * 67) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Institutional rituals - how do we teach students to have solitude, be alone, have conversations
 * 68) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Can teaching be a place to slow down?
 * 69) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Model an approach to knowledge that leaves space for reflection.
 * 70) <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"> Art of teaching in the 21st century not about teaching a new software but about helping students tolerate the anxiety of being left with their own company long enough to think their own thoughts. Slow down, reflect, and re-center in a hyper-connected world.