The Flight from Conversation

Summary of The Flight from Conversation

In the article “The Flight from Conversation”, the author Sherry Turkle gives us insight on how technology is affecting human life today by revealing the shift from face-to-face conversation to technological connection and analyzing this shift from many aspects of life.

According to Turkle’s research and daily experience for many years, she offers us a large amount of examples to indicate that people are so dependent on technology that they are getting “alone together”(334). She notes that with technology, people can keep connection with others in a moderate distance, present themselves as they want to be and clean up relationships easily(335). However, by showing the contrast between connection and conversation, she denies the equality between the sum of online connection and a real conversation. Even if technology has the ability of gathering discrete information and conveying quick and brief expressions, as Turkle claims, it deprives our abilities of understanding and knowing one another, having patience in communication and reflecting ourselves(335-336). Furthermore, Turkle states some of her unforgettable experiences, like a research where an old woman got comfort by talking with a robotic baby(336). From these experiences Turkle concludes that because of not being noticed, people are addicted to communicating with electronic devices that always center upon them(337). In Turkle’s opinion, such “rush to connect” reflects technology’s pushing people to run away from solitude, which can fill people with true feelings and experiences (337). In the end, Turkle calls on people to lay down devices and have conversation with each other(334-337).

Turkle, Sherry. “The Flight From Conversation.” Reading Critically Writing Well. Ed. Axelrod, Rise B., Charles R. Cooper, and Alison M. Warriner. Boston: Bedford, 2013.