Arts/Literary
‘Friends’ Without A Personal Touch
Title: Alone Together
Author: Sherry Turkle
Reviewer: Michiko Kakutani
Teenagers who send and receive six to eight thousand texts a month and spend hours a day on Facebook. Mourners who send text messages during a memorial service because they can’t go an hour without using their B1ackBerries. Children who see an authentic Galapagos tortoise at the American Museum of Natural History and can’t understand why the museum didn’t use a robot tortoise instead. High school students who wonder how much they should tilt heir Facebook profiles toward what heir friends will think is cool, or what college admissions boards might prize.
As Sherry Turkle notes in her perceptive new book, “Alone Together,” these are examples of the ways technology is changing how people relate to .one another and construct their own inner lives. She is concerned here not with the political uses of the Internet, as manifested in the current democratic uprisings in Egypt and other countries in the Middle East, but with its psychological side effects.
In two earlier books, Ms. Turkle, a professor of the social studies of science and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a clinical psychologist, put considerable emphasis on the plethora of opportunities for exploring identity that computers and net working offer people. In these pages, she takes a considerably darker view, arguing that our new technologies, including e-mail messages, Facebook postings, Skype exchanges, role-playing games, Internet bulletin boards and robots have made convenience and control a priority while diminishing the expectations we have of other human beings.
Ms. Turkle’s thesis here, some of which will sound overly familiar, but some of which turns out to be savvy and insightful, is that even as more and more people are projecting human qualities onto robots (i.e., digital toys like the Furby and computerised companions like the Paro, designed to provide entertainment and comfort to the elderly), we have come to expect less and less from human encounters as mediated by the Net.
Instead of real friends, we “friend” strangers on Facebook. Instead of talking on the phone (never mind face to face), we text and tweet. Technology, she writes, “makes it easy to communicate when we wish and to disengage at will.”
In writing this book, Ms. Turkle interviewed hundreds of children and adults about technology, and her anthropological generalisation sometimes seem based on largely anecdotal evidence; we often never know just how representative her examples really are. Still, the author has spent decades examining how people interact with computers and other devices. Her first book on computers and people, “The Second Self”, was published in 1984; the next, “We on the Screen,” in 1995, and by situating her findings in historical perspective, she is able to lend contextual ballast to her case studies.
Many of the adolescents cited in her book express a decided distaste for using the phone. One high school sophomore says telephone calls mean you have to have a conversation and conversations are “almost always too prying, it takes too long, and it is impossible to say ‘goodbye.’ “Another student says: “When you talk on the phone, you don’t really think about what you’re saying as much as in a text. On the telephone, too much might show.”·
Texts, in other words, offer more control and the ability to keep one’s feelings at a distance. Many young people “prefer to deal with strong feelings from the safe haven of the Net,” Ms. Turkle writes. “It gives them an alternative to processing emotions in real time.”
While teachers must contend with distracted students, who may be texting or surfing the Web in class, says. Turkle, young people must contend with distracted parents who with their BlackBerries and cellphones may be physically present but mentally elsewhere. Noting that the psychoanalyst Erikson regarded identity play as part of the work of adolescence,: She argues that the Net not only supplies teenagers with lots of opportunities to explore who they are and what they aspire to, but also generates added anxiety, heightening peer pressure and encouraging many to construct, edit and perform “self” in an effort to win friends and influence.
Of an interview subject she calls Brad, Ms. Turkle writes: “Brad says, only half jokingly, that he worries about getting ‘confused’ between what he ‘composes’ for his online life and who he ‘really’ is. Not yet confirmed in his identity, it makes him anxious to post things about himself that the doesn’t really know are true. It burdens him that t things he says online affect how people treat him in the real. People already relate to him based on things he has said on Facebook. Brad struggles to be more ‘himself’ the but flu is hard. He says that even when he tries to be ‘honest’ CA Facebook he cannot resist the temptation to use the site ‘to make the right impression.’
As Ms. Turkle sees it, online life tends to promote more superficial, emotionally lazy relationships, people are “drawn to connections that seem low risk and always at hand.” This tendency to treat other people as objects that can be quickly discarded, she says, is embodied at its most extreme by the social Web site Chatrouletted “which randomly connects you to other users all over the world”.
“You see each other on live video. You can talk or write notes. People mostly hit ‘next’ after about two seconds to bring another person up on their screens.”
There are other consequences to constant networking as well. When we are always tethered to our offices, our families, our friends even when hiking in the woods or walking by the ocean, then solitude becomes increasingly elusive, and creative, contemplative, carefully considered thought increasingly gives way to immediate, sometimes illconsidered reactions.
At times, Ms. Turkle can sound primly sanctimonious, complaining for instance, that the sight at a local cafe of people focused on their computers and smart phones as they drink their coffee bothers her. “These people are not my friends,” she writes; “yet somehow I miss their presence.” Such sentimental whining undermines the larger and important points she wants to make in this volume the notion that technology offers the illusion of companionship without the demands of intimacy and communication, without emotional risk, while actually making people feel lonelier and more overwhelmed.
“Once we remove ourselves from the flow of physical, messy, untidy life – and both robotics and networked life do that we become less willing to get out there and take a chance,” she writes. “A song that became popular on You Tube in 2010, ‘Do You Want to Date My Avatar?’ ends with the lyrics ‘And if you think I’m not the one, log off, log off, and we’ll be done”.
Culled from mytime.com
Michiko Kakutani
It is the idea of God that family should exit. Children form part of the family. God loves family so much that Jesus was born into the family of Joseph.
Everyone’s family is good and important. Children should not look down on their family whether they are rich or poor.
Children should respect and honour their family and foster love among their siblings. They should work together and make peace in the family. They should always stand in the gap. It is good for family members to carry all along since everyone may not be doing well.
The Christianity that children learn is practised in family. Faith-based organisations do a great job in moulding children’s character. Those are the behaviours that children exhibit towards siblings in family.
Every child born in a family is there for a purpose. A baby born into a family is supplying something. It may be joy, wealth and so on. Everyone is important in a family.
Adolescents who have graduated from school but may not be contributing financially can do one or two things at home. You can engage in preparing meals at home while parents are away for a job or business. Contributing in house chores will go a long way to relieve parents of stress after a day’s job.
What do you contribute to your family, especially during holidays both in nuclear and extended family?
The family you were born is constant but friends are temporary. You can decide not to continue in friendship but you cannot cut off your family. No matter how bad you think your family is and you decide to leave home, you must surely return. Your friends can harbour you for a while.
The child’s first identity comes from the family. What the child learns first comes from the family.
Family is the centre of love and care. People have started playing down on marriage because of neglect on basics of family. Marriage starts today and and the next few months, it is threatened. Respect for family plays a crucial role in marriage.
No child grows without parental control and influence. If a child refuses to grow without taking instructions from parents, he may grow up being wild. There are consequences when children do not obey their parents. There are those who want to be rebellious against their parents. They should know that their length of days are tied to their parents.
Your bioligical parents know you more than every other person. There is the wisdom and knowledge your parents have that you do not so it is proper to listen to them before choosing carriers both in academics and job. A young man or woman can choose who to get married to, but a greater role in the choice of who to marry and the marriage proper comes from the parents.
They know what is best for you. No matter how modern trends will influence you and prove it wrong, parent is the key. No one can love you more than your parents because they are your blood.
A lot of parents have been traumatised due to the fact that children they nurtured and trained turned their back on them at older age. Children should not abandon their parents for any reason.
As you grow up, situations may arise in marriage when you decide it is over with your spouse, but no matter the level of provocation with your parents, they will not despise you. Parents will also play a role in that regard. Problem arises in every family but how it is handled matters a lot.
Some children honour their mentors more than their parents. Although there are parents who shy away from their responsibilities. It is important that parents take full responsibility of their children. You cannot bring a child to the planet earth and refuse to perform roles as a parent. But parents may not quantify what they spent from childhood to adolescence. That is a blessing children cannot get from another person.
There are people who have attributed their failure in life to the fact that their parents, especially mothers are witchcraft. It is wrong to feel that your mother is instrumental to your failure in life. The only way to success is hardwork.
Let money not determine the level of love for your parents. Wherever a child goes, family is constant.
Eunice Choko-Kayode
Naturally, when a child is born, it is the role of the father and mother to decide a suitable name for the child. The husband and wife normally discuss and suggest the English or vernacular name of the baby.
But sometimes, when a baby comes into a family, grandparents hearts are usually filled with joy to the extent that they want to answer present, by giving their own names not minding the fact that the biological parents have given theirs.
This happens mostly when the marriage is an inter-tribal one. It also happens even in intra-tribal marriage. Grandparents want equal representation as far as naming a child is concerned. They also have special names as a result of circumstances surrounding the birth of the child.
This is still happening till date.
A lot of people have viewed this in different ways but there is nothing wrong about it. The most important thing is that the child bears as many names as he or she can. But one thing is certain, the child must bear one name in school.
Should circumstance determine a child’s name?
Women who are more emotional are always eager to name their children considering the circumstances surrounding the child’s conception and arrival.
The issue of grandparents naming a child comes up mostly when it is the first of the family.
In naming children by some parents in the olden days, they named their children according to the days in the week in which they were born, like Sunday, Monday, Friday and so on.
You may be shocked to hear that whether a child is given 10 names by parents or grandparents, when he or she grows up, will decide to change. There are several cases where some persons decided to change especially when they feel that the names given by their parents and grandparents do not give them joy. If they are not doing well in life, they may claim that their misfortune is caused by the name their parents.
Competition among children in schools be it primary, (kindergarten) and secondary come in different forms. It can be Mathematics , debate, quiz, spelling bee,competition, from organisations like Cowbell, multi-national companies, faith-based organisations among others.
They are organised mostly for selected intelligent ones, the best among their peers to represent a class, school or group. Prizes are normally set aside for the best as well as consolation prizes for runners-up at the end of each session.
The question is, are children willing to accept defeat when they fail? As parents, guardians, can you encourage your children or wards to accept defeat instead of shouting and comparing them with others who may be performing better either in schools or outside.
Some parents may be blaming their children for not doing well in competitions. They will like to tell their children if others who may perform better have ten heads. Those group of parents blame their children for every failure.
For your children to do better in competition, the parents too must have emotional intelligence. When you continue to blame your children for failure, how intelligent are you?
Some parents always want their children to be in the 1st position and unhappy whenever they secure 2nd position. There were instances where children smashed their trophies because they never got the position they wanted to get and their parents supported them.
Children should be able to accept it whether they win or not. They should be encouraged for every performance. Discourage the issue of “shame, shame, shame, shame”.
A parent says she always tells her children to win even if they will fail. Always give them the mentality that they can win. Children should be given the impression that they can win prizes and laurels in every competition.
Parents should not isolate their children from others in the neighbourhood. Allow them to play with others. Don’t threaten your children that you may not pay their schools fees if they fail. Comparing them with others may encourage or discourage them.
Coming first or getting award as a first class student from the university sometimes does not mean that the person is the best. And if the child does not merit any award in the lower classes, does not mean that he can not merit first class also.
It should be noted that coming first in academic competition may not really mean that the competitor will be the best at work place or business.
Accepting defeat is a way to move higher. Even if a child who competed with others did not come first, there are consolation prizes for runners-up. When you advise the child to accept defeat, you are encouraging her to win in next competition.
Remember all children cannot be on the same knowledge level Their learning abilities defer.
Eunice Choko-Kayode
