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  • Essay / The Flight From Conversation - 718

    “Many people tell me they hope that as Siri, Apple's iPhone digital assistant, becomes more advanced, "she" will look more plus a best friend” (138).Sherry Turkle is a renowned professor, author and media commentator who has studied media and technology for many years. I often speak to audiences about the dangers of engaging in virtual media. In his essay “The Flight from Conversation,” Turkle addresses some of his concerns about the impact of technology (mainly our phones) on people. Turkle believes people are giving up face-to-face conversations in exchange for telecommunications, and his hypothesis is wrong. Over the past fifteen years, Turkle has studied mobile connection technologies and spoken to hundreds of people who all seem to believe that texting/email is superior to old-fashioned chatting. Many of the people Turkle interviews tell her they don't like being alone and need to have a cellular device near them at all times to feel connected. This is how she introduces the idea of ​​“alone together” (136) in which all the accusations made were proposed and witnessed only by her, which in turn only weakens her argument. Without statistics, data, or even numbers, it's hard to know if what she believes is true. Facts can never be underestimated simply because of the central role they play in any argument. Additionally, this article is full of bias against technology that almost manifests itself as an attack on anything with a screen. Although Turkle has some excellent points about the impact of technology on people, she looks at the wrong side of the coin. Looking only at cases of people who clearly lack something more than a friend and generalizing the entire population as if everyone is everything