Turkle reflection

Regarding Turkle's 2012 ted talk, I agreed with a lot of her points. When she says that we deny our feelings and "go into our phones," I saw my students "checking out" of class and going on their phones. I am guilty of doing this myself. Checking texts, emails, social media, while in class or at work. I am terrible at multitasking, but I do it anyway, and it's stressful, but as Turkle said, I want to be in charge of where I direct my attention. If I'm bored in class, or frustrated at work, I take refuge by looking at my phone. I can escape the boredom in class or the anxiety at work by looking at pictures of celebrities on Instagram. Turkle argues that this is problematic, and it definitely is. Rather than reflecting or sitting with my feelings, I am escaping them and distracting myself. I see my students do it all the time. Students spend entire classes scrolling on their phone because they don't want to "be" in class. They're physically there, but they're not really there, and they can control those feelings of being anxious or bored in class and escape it. Why wouldn't they?

Nine years later Turkle writes an article, The Pandemic Made Us Strangers to Ourselves. I had not yet considered how technology made us less vulnerable before the pandemic, and how during the pandemic, technology was the only way to be vulnerable and share intimacy/connection with others. This has definitely had a lasting effect. We have talked in class about how youth now have relationships and friendships with people they have never met in person. Genuine relationships begin and last over a phone/computer. The pandemic forced this to prevail and implode. Personally, the pandemic did change the way I feel about myself and my relationship with technology, personally and professionally. While I am resistant to admit it, I do start and maintain friendships/relationships with people on apps that I could have never seen myself doing pre-pandemic. Meeting up with a stranger that you met online used to sound like a deathtrap. Then, during the pandemic you had to meet people online, have interviews over the phone, and have an online profile in order to work and have a social life. I now see meeting up with a stranger online as normal as long as you've done the "social media background check." I think I have also become a stronger teacher since the pandemic, incorporating technology because I had to but now because it's convenient. Turkle also addresses the pandemic's effect on the country in the context of social justice. System racism and police brutality was finally talked about on a grand scale and subsequently divided many people like never before. This changed me, and my relationships with those who did not share my same beliefs.