in order to expand on the idea that our world may be too obsessed with the use of technology causing the human connection to fade away. Throughout the text Turkle uses real life examples to help her audience understand the effects of using technology to communicate rather than face to face communication. Turkle reflects on how a thirteen year old girl told her she “hates the phone and never listens to voicemail” (Turkle 92). By incorporating this example, she is giving the audience insight on how younger people feel towards communicating with technology. This example also offers more on how far we have come with communication, because now teenagers don't call, but rather text to be more efficient and not have to show emotion towards another person. By including this simple example and then moving on to how we may be communicating with robots in a matter of years, Turkle conveniently helps the audience understand how we are becoming distant in an orderly way. She makes an example of how technological communication makes us distant from each other by quoting a woman named Ellen whom she met in Paris. Ellen and her grandmother Skype call each other, allowing them to see each other and talk without taking the time to meet face to face, but Ellen admits she “[Does her] email during the calls. [She's] not really paying attention [their] conversation” (Turkle 89). By including this quote and example Turkle provides evidence that communicating with technology does not give one's full attention to the other person, this effectively proves her point that technology is more of a priority than the people in our lives. In addition to this example Turkle includes details of a conversation she had with a man named Randy, whose sister emailed him the news of her engagement along with a list of friends and family. She goes on to add that Randy says he “feels very far away” from his sister to get an emotional response from her audience(Turkle 91). By elaborating on the fact that someone's own sister told them big news through a mass email, had a negative reaction on that person makes the audience feel that she is right about technology making us distant. Turkle has successfully worked with the audience's emotion in this way and makes her argument valid. In the same way that Turkle uses real life examples to authenticate her argument, she also uses effectual diction to assure the reader that while technology is keeping us connected it is in fact disconnecting us from real life relationships.
Turkle reflects on how “only a decade ago” teenagers would hang out in local shopping malls and parks to visit and talk to each other, and today people would rather tweet each other than go out with one another (Turkle 91). The use of the word “only” illuminates how we have become so engulfed in our devices today, and makes the audience feel a sense of remorse due to how distant we've become over such a short period of time. This helps Turkle present her ideas in a satisfactory way. She is able to play on the readers more sensitive emotions causing them to reflect on her ideas and feed into what she is saying. She describes technology as a “phantom limb” being that it is so much a part of people, and people can feel when their devices are alerting them even when not on their person (Turkle 92). The choice of words here describes how connected we are to our devices and how distant we are to people around us. Turkle uses the phrase “alone together” condenses her argument down to two words which, helps her audience fathom the points she is makes about technology distancing us from each other. Turkle also states that we start to see our “online life as life itself” (Turkle 92). By including this it gives the reader a chance to reflect on their lives and seek truth about Turkle’s ideas on technology. The diction of the phrase “life itself” gives off an intense emotion because real life is nowhere near real so, this gives insight as to how technology twists people’s perceptions of
reality. Undoubtedly Sherry Turkle’s use of real examples and effectual diction surpass her general assumptions and help build her argument in a convincing and alluring way. Turkle is able to successfully persuade her readers into siding with her thoughts on the disconnection technology may bring to people. Sherry Turkle is not the only one to notice how technology distracts us from each other; I’ve personally experienced many situations in which what I am saying is being shut out by texting. A friend of mine completely tunes out what I’m saying while she is texting so; I have to repeat what I say multiple times before she looks away from the screen and acknowledges what I am talking about. This supports Sherry Turkle’s argument that there is a disconnection between people when technology is so involved in our lives.