Really? Thoreau and cellphones, too? Sort of.
Sherry Turkle, author of Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, explores the idea that our constant connection to others via technology is actually destroying our ability to relate to others.
Teachers of American Literature who have their students read Henry David Thoreau may find an interesting connection in the book. Turkle references Thoreau’s three chairs in explaining how solitude, friendship, and society are influenced by our reliance on digital methods of communicating. Turkle adds a fourth chair defining a “philosophical space” which raises the question “Who do we become when we talk to machines?” This sounds like an essential question to start an on-going conversation.
For someone like me who admits to being more comfortable sending an e-mail or a text than talking on the phone, this is interesting reading and raises the question "Who has Trump become from talking to his machines to create his Twitter conversation?"
Food for thought.
Check out the book. Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, Sherry Turkle, Penguin, 2015.
