10.9.2014
ENG 101
Professor Benjamini
Computers Change the Way We Live
Computers have been our best friend for rather a long time. Nowadays we seek technology, and we cannot live without it. Our consciousness tries to pull us into it deeper and deeper. The real problem is not that we are not able to escape, but we do not want to escape. The virtual life has made us a very comfortable place to work, play or communicate. We believe that the technology life is real when it is not. Computers are not bad, and they are not going to give us any harm if we will use it in a right direction. The realization of that, unfortunately, has not come to us yet. Technology used in a wrong way is bringing us to fear of sharing feelings in a real life and not having the knowledge of computers. In this essay, I would like to support Sherry Turkle’s views on today’s impact. She is a professor at MIT who has some very interesting ideas and thoughts.
The author of The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit, Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud’s French Revolution, and Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, Sherry Turkle shows us the clear picture of what is really going on. Her approach on this subject is extraordinary and it makes you wonder how the future generation will get along with their lives. When I was reading Turkle’s essay piece, I noticed that she had six sub points. “Avatars or a Self?” and “Taking Things at Interface Value” sub points caught my attention immediately. She states that many technology venues gives us different ways of expressing ourselves. Now adults may not have any problems with expressing/sharing feelings because many of them know the right way to do it. However, children who have a very little experience of how to possess themselves in real life get stuck with not knowing the real solution. Turkle believes that all modern children have this problem. ‘’Some children who write narratives for their
Cited: Turkle, Sherry "Computers Change The Way We Think" The Writer 's Presense: A pool of Readings (2012): 600-604. Print. Turkle, Sherry. Surface, Surface Everywhere... 23 Aug. 2007. Web. 19 Sept. 2007. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk