Sherry Turkle, Professor at MIT, gave a Ted talk in the 90’s saying social media held incredible promise to connect humans together. In 2012, she reversed her position and said social media is keeping us from real human connection. Her TED talk, “Connected, but alone?” has 3 million views.
Key points:
- We are “Alone together”
- All the text’s don’t add up to a real conversation
- Conversations allow us to really know one another
- We desire intimacy, but are afraid of it, avoid it, escape in our phones
- If we don’t learn to be alone and separate from our technology (solitude), we will be more lonely
Questions for Discussion:
1. When do you separate yourself from technology?
2. How does your group cultivate real conversation?
3. Are you spending enough time building relationships? How do you know?
4. Describe the last time you intentionally practiced solitude? What was the effect?
This is really insightful. Explains why I feel so drained after attempting to connect fb, email, sometimes text. We were made for “real” relationships!
This challenges me to invest my time more in real face time.
I made a commitment to focus more on my children and building my family and I found I was wasting precious time on Facebook and felt sad and further alone. I found that social media did not add the connections and values that I wanted for myself and my family. I made a conscious decision and deleted all social media. I feel more connected to my children and my community. Facebook is especially bad, I work in IT and I believe it totally takes life away. (Romans 12:2) Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.