Connected, but alone?

and shop and go on Facebook during classes, during

Sherry Turkle, TED 2012 presentations, actually during all meetings. People
talk to me about the important new skill of making
Just a moment ago, my daughter Rebecca texted me eye contact while you're texting. People explain to
for good luck. Her text said, "Mom, you will rock." I me that it's hard, but that it can be done. Parents text
love this. Getting that text was like getting a and do email at breakfast and at dinner while their
hug. And so there you have it. I embody the central children complain about not having their parents' full
paradox. I'm a woman who loves getting texts who's attention. But then these same children deny each
going to tell you that too many of them can be a other their full attention. This is a recent shot of my
problem. daughter and her friends being together while not
being together. And we even text at funerals. I study
Actually that reminder of my daughter brings me to this. We remove ourselves from our grief or from our
the beginning of my story. 1996, when I gave my first revery and we go into our phones.
TEDTalk, Rebecca was five years old and she was
sitting right there in the front row. I had just written Why does this matter? It matters to me because I
a book that celebrated our life on the internet and I think we're setting ourselves up for trouble -- trouble
was about to be on the cover of Wired magazine. In certainly in how we relate to each other, but also
those heady days, we were experimenting with chat trouble in how we relate to ourselves and our
rooms and online virtual communities. We were capacity for self-reflection. We're getting used to a
exploring different aspects of ourselves. And then we new way of being alone together. People want to be
unplugged. I was excited. And, as a psychologist, with each other, but also elsewhere -- connected to
what excited me most was the idea that we would use all the different places they want to be. People want
what we learned in the virtual world about ourselves, to customize their lives. They want to go in and out
about our identity, to live better lives in the real of all the places they are because the thing that
world. matters most to them is control over where they put
their attention. So you want to go to that board
Now fast-forward to 2012. I'm back here on the TED meeting, but you only want to pay attention to the
stage again. My daughter's 20. She's a college bits that interest you. And some people think that's a
student. She sleeps with her cellphone, so do I. And good thing. But you can end up hiding from each
I've just written a new book, but this time it's not other, even as we're all constantly connected to each
one that will get me on the cover of Wired other.
magazine. So what happened? I'm still excited by
technology, but I believe, and I'm here to make the A 50-year-old business man lamented to me that he
case that we're letting it take us places that we don't feels he doesn't have colleagues anymore at
want to go. work. When he goes to work, he doesn't stop by to
talk to anybody, he doesn't call. And he says he
Over the past 15 years, I've studied technologies of doesn't want to interrupt his colleagues because, he
mobile communication and I've interviewed says, "They're too busy on their email." But then he
hundreds and hundreds of people, young and stops himself and he says, "You know, I'm not telling
old, about their plugged in lives. And what I've you the truth. I'm the one who doesn't want to be
found is that our little devices, those little devices in interrupted. I think I should want to, but actually I'd
our pockets, are so psychologically powerful that rather just do things on my Blackberry."
they don't only change what we do, they change who
we are. Some of the things we do now with our Across the generations, I see that people can't get
devices are things that, only a few years ago, we enough of each other, if and only if they can have
would have found odd or disturbing, but they've each other at a distance, in amounts they can
quickly come to seem familiar, just how we do control. I call it the Goldilocks effect: not too close,
things. not too far, just right. But what might feel just
right for that middle-aged executive can be a problem
So just to take some quick examples: People text or for an adolescent who needs to develop face-to-face
do email during corporate board meetings. They text relationships. An 18-year-old boy who uses texting
for almost everything says to me
wistfully, "Someday, someday, but certainly not one is listening to me is very important in our
now, I'd like to learn how to have a conversation." relationships with technology. That's why it's so
appealing to have a Facebook page or a Twitter feed
When I ask people "What's wrong with having a -- so many automatic listeners. And the feeling that
conversation?" People say, "I'll tell you what's wrong no one is listening to me make us want to spend
with having a conversation. It takes place in real time with machines that seem to care about us.
time and you can't control what you're going to
say." So that's the bottom line. Texting, email, We're developing robots, they call them sociable
posting, all of these things let us present the self as robots that are specifically designed to be
we want to be. We get to edit, and that means we get companions -- to the elderly, to our children, to
to delete, and that means we get to retouch, the face, us. Have we so lost confidence that we will be there
the voice, the flesh, the body -- not too little, not too for each other? During my research I worked in
much, just right. nursing homes, and I brought in these sociable
robots that were designed to give the elderly the
Human relationships are rich and they're messy and feeling that they were understood. And one day I
they're demanding. And we clean them up with came in and a woman who had lost a child was
technology. And when we do, one of the things that talking to a robot in the shape of a baby seal. It
can happen is that we sacrifice conversation for mere seemed to be looking in her eyes. It seemed to be
connection. We short-change ourselves. And over following the conversation. It comforted her. And
time, we seem to forget this, or we seem to stop many people found this amazing.
caring.
But that woman was trying to make sense of her
I was caught off guard when Stephen Colbert asked life with a machine that had no experience of the arc
me a profound question, a profound question. He of a human life. That robot put on a great show. And
said, "Don't all those little tweets, don't all those little we're vulnerable. People experience pretend
sips of online communication, add up to one big empathy as though it were the real thing. So during
gulp of real conversation?" My answer was no, they that moment when that woman was experiencing that
don't add up. Connecting in sips may work for pretend empathy, I was thinking, "That robot can't
gathering discrete bits of information, they may work empathize. It doesn't face death. It doesn't know
for saying, "I'm thinking about you," or even for life."
saying, "I love you," -- I mean, look at how I
felt when I got that text from my daughter -- but they And as that woman took comfort in her robot
don't really work for learning about each other, for companion, I didn't find it amazing; I found it one of
really coming to know and understand each the most wrenching, complicated moments in my 15
other. And we use conversations with each other to years of work. But when I stepped back, I felt
learn how to have conversations with ourselves. So a myself at the cold, hard center of a perfect storm. We
flight from conversation can really matter because it expect more from technology and less from each
can compromise our capacity for self-reflection. For other. And I ask myself, "Why have things come to
kids growing up, that skill is the bedrock of this?"
development.
And I believe it's because technology appeals to us
Over and over I hear, "I would rather text than most where we are most vulnerable. And we are
talk." And what I'm seeing is that people get so used vulnerable. We're lonely, but we're afraid of
to being short-changed out of real conversation, so intimacy. And so from social networks to sociable
used to getting by with less that they've become robots, we're designing technologies that will give us
almost willing to dispense with people altogether. So the illusion of companionship without the demands
for example, many people share with me this wish of friendship. We turn to technology to help us feel
that someday a more advanced version of Siri, the connected in ways we can comfortably control. But
digital assistant on Apple's iPhone, will be more like we're not so comfortable. We are not so much in
a best friend, someone who will listen when others control.
won't. I believe this wish reflects a painful truth that
I've learned in the past 15 years. That feeling that no
These days, those phones in our pockets are changing "Those who make the most of their lives on the
our minds and hearts because they offer us three screen come to it in a spirit of self-reflection." And
gratifying fantasies. One, that we can put our that's what I'm calling for here, now: reflection and,
attention wherever we want it to be; two, that we will more than that, a conversation about where our
always be heard; and three, that we will never have current use of technology may be taking us, what it
to be alone. And that third idea, that we will never might be costing us. We're smitten with
have to be alone, is central to changing our technology. And we're afraid, like young lovers, that
psyches. Because the moment that people are too much talking might spoil the romance. But it's
alone, even for a few seconds, they become anxious, time to talk. We grew up with digital technology and
they panic, they fidget, and they reach for a so we see it as all grown up. But it's not, it's early
device. Just think of people at a checkout line or at a days. There's plenty of time for us to reconsider how
red light. Being alone feels like a problem that needs we use it, how we build it. I'm not suggesting that we
to be solved. And so people try to solve it by turn away from our devices, just that we develop a
connecting. But here, connection is more like a more self-aware relationship with them, with each
symptom than a cure. It expresses, but it doesn't other and with ourselves.
solve, an underlying problem. But more than a
symptom, constant connection is changing the way I see some first steps. Start thinking of solitude as a
people think of themselves. It's shaping a new way good thing. Make room for it. Find ways to
of being. demonstrate this as a value to your children. Create
sacred spaces at home -- the kitchen, the dining room
The best way to describe it is, I share therefore I -- and reclaim them for conversation. Do the same
am. We use technology to define ourselves by thing at work. At work, we're so busy
sharing our thoughts and feelings even as we're communicating that we often don't have time to
having them. So before it was: I have a feeling, I want think, we don't have time to talk, about the things that
to make a call. Now it's: I want to have a feeling, I really matter. Change that. Most important, we all
need to send a text. The problem with this new really need to listen to each other, including to the
regime of "I share therefore I am" is that, if we don't boring bits. Because it's when we stumble or hesitate
have connection, we don't feel like ourselves. We or lose our words that we reveal ourselves to each
almost don't feel ourselves. So what do we do? We other.
connect more and more. But in the process, we set
ourselves up to be isolated. Technology is making a bid to redefine human
connection -- how we care for each other, how we
How do you get from connection to isolation? You care for ourselves -- but it's also giving us the
end up isolated if you don't cultivate the capacity for opportunity to affirm our values and our
solitude, the ability to be separate, to gather direction. I'm optimistic. We have everything we
yourself. Solitude is where you find yourself so that need to start. We have each other. And we have the
you can reach out to other people and form real greatest chance of success if we recognize our
attachments. When we don't have the capacity for vulnerability. That we listen when technology says it
solitude, we turn to other people in order to feel less will take something complicated and promises
anxious or in order to feel alive. When this something simpler.
happens, we're not able to appreciate who they
are. It's as though we're using them as spare parts to So in my work, I hear that life is hard, relationships
support our fragile sense of self. We slip into are filled with risk. And then there's technology -
thinking that always being connected is going to - simpler, hopeful, optimistic, and ever-young. It's
make us feel less alone. But we're at risk, because like calling in the cavalry. An ad campaign
actually it's the opposite that's true. If we're not able promises that online and with avatars, you can
to be alone, we're going to be lonelier. And if we "Finally, love your friends love your body, love your
don't teach our children to be alone, they're only life, online and with avatars." We're drawn to virtual
going to know how to be lonely. romance, to computer games that seem like
worlds, to the idea that robots, robots, will someday
When I spoke at TED in 1996, reporting on my be our true companions. We spend an evening on the
studies of the early virtual communities, I said,
social network instead of going to the pub with
friends.

But our fantasies of substitution have cost us. Now

we all need to focus on the many, many
ways technology can lead us back to our real lives,
our own bodies, our own communities, our own
politics, and our own planet. They need us. Let's talk
about how we can use digital technology, the
technology of our dreams, to make this life the life
we can love.