Alone Together By Sherry Turrkle

We are living in a world that is going one thousand miles per hour in every direction we go and the only way to understand what is going on is by maintaining a busy lifestyle. Our lives are full with new technologies to maintain a busy lifestyle and all these technologies are explained by Sherry Turkle in her essay, “Alone Together.” In this essay Turkle provides examples on how new technologies are being used to keep us busy and how these new technologies allow us to keep our busy lives in tack. Also, capitalism has a large effect on people’s time consumption, people usually work and work and work to live lives that they are told to be perfect. The theory that capitalism makes humans more and more busy is explained by Arlie Russell Hochschild
There are also many negatives that can be associated with being busy all the time. One example of a negative of being busy all the time is how people can lose time that they can spend with people they love and doing things that they love to do. Companies market to people who are living a busy life and in these advertisements. These companies show people who are always in a hurry and have no time to enjoy time with their families and are rushing out the door to be efficient. The need to be efficient is a new idea that has driven people now to try to get as much work done in as little time and even after that work is done there is still more work that could be needed to be done. Hochschild discusses this in her essay when she is describing what an Americo (a fortune 500 company which Hochschild calls a different name in the essay) executive would do differently in his life. “He wished he‘d spent more time with three daughters when they were growing up,” was his answer to what he would do different if he could redo his life (Hochschild 191). If only this executive of Americo had more free time he would be able to spend more time with his children as they grew up. He could have also had a more important role in their lives as they developed into the people, they are today. That is one fear that almost all people have is not having time for family. People fear that
The uses of new technologies and the correct implementations of capitalism can help society grow and allows us to grow as people. Having a structure for our lives as humans allow us to be more and more productive which under capitalism. If this busyness includes work would also lead to an increase in earnings which would allow people to be happier. The same Americo executive as discussed previously by Hochschild spent most of his time working to allow his family to have a greater type of lifestyle. The executive stated, “I want my wife to enjoy the process of raising them [his children]. I’ll enjoy that vicariously. What I will enjoy directly is the result, the young adults” (Hochschild 191). This statement might seem intense to most but, the executive is just trying to be the best that he can do to provide for his family. There are times where everyone is free as stated by Hochschild “they waited for the weekend, for their vacation, for ‘quality time’” (Hochschild 191). The time that is usually free for most people are the weekends even children so if a parent is not busy every weekend then they would still be able to spend time with their children as they grew up. Another point that allows people to be more and why it is a good thing for people to stay busy is the increase in new/ more advanced technologies. These new technologies allow people to be busy but, also allow people to be more