“Connected, but Alone” TED Talk

The TED talk, â€Å"Connected, but alone† by Sherry Turkle talks about how big of an influence technology had become in our generation and how it changed our social interaction. Sherry Turkle talked about how we turn to our phones or other gadgets to have a feeling of acceptance, companionship and interaction. She elucidated in her speech that people nowadays neglect social interaction with others around them and would rather tap away on their phones. She ended her speech hoping that technology can bring people back to the real world and connect us all with each other. I do agree that technology connected us to the world enabling us to learn more about the things around but in the long run, cultivated a feeling of isolation in us. Technology had connected us to the rest of the world but not with each other. At this day and age, technology had become a primary necessity for us. Professionals, students, employees or anyone rely mostly on technology to make their work easier for them. It is continuously developing and improving to make new inventions or improve old ones. Technology has done a lot of good things for us especially for Filipinos. It is not new for Filipinos to have at least one family member as an OFW and we find it hard to communicate with them regularly which is one of the problems that technology has fixed. Now, we can talk to anyone in the world no matter how far they are for us, for free. But even with these good benefits, we often tend to isolate ourselves from the real world and ignore the things or people around us. I can relate to this because as a teenager who grew up with computers and gadgets, I also feel that sometimes, since I can do everything in the internet, I would just stay in the house and tap away on my phone. Sometimes people would attend parties or other formal gatherings to interact with friends or family but now, some are just doing it to take pictures to post on Facebook or Instagram, flaunting their outfits to get a lot of â€Å"likes† which has now become a measure of confidence for some people. Families would sit around the dining table but instead of talking to each other about how their days went, everyone would be on their gadgets. We are also introduced to â€Å"virtual friends†, or people we find online and chat with them. While this is also a good example of how technology has made communication easier for us, when we actually feel the need to talk to someone personally and want to be around people, we feel lonely because we spent too much time online instead going out and meet up with friends. Sherry Turkle ended the TED talk by saying that we need to focus on the ways that technology can lead us back to our real lives. While technology brought about a lot of innovations to make work easier for humans, we must not completely rely on it and we must experience the world in real life and not just through a screen. Overall, the TED talk was effective and accurately describes how our generation utilizes technology for communication. I hope that this TED talk may serve as a wake-up call to not lose our connection with people in the real world and use technology to further improve communication without completely disregarding actual and real-life interaction.