Faith explains how platforms like YouTube and online articles have helped her think critically and learn more deeply.
Turkle also acknowledges that technology can be used for learning and connection but warns that we must be intentional about how we use it.
Faith argues that social media has weakened her attention span and made deep focus feel “unappealing.”
Turkle discusses how digital distractions rob people of the ability to reflect, be alone with their thoughts, or engage in deep work. She calls this the loss of solitude.
Faith describes how apps like TikTok are engineered for addiction and keep users hooked with short, dopamine-releasing content.
Turkle similarly warns that these platforms are designed to keep us engaged, not enriched. She explores the ethical consequences of tech companies monetizing attention.
Faith reflects on how the internet can cause people to follow the herd, and how opinions can feel swayed by popular consensus rather than logic
Turkle believes technology has created a culture of performance over authenticity. People seek validation and avoid disagreement, reducing genuine dialogue and self-reflection.
Faith touches on the idea that people no longer think independently or deeply, which weakens their ability to engage in meaningful discourse
Turkle’s The Empathy Diaries focuses heavily on how tech is reducing face-to-face interaction, making us less empathetic. She argues that we’re losing the art of conversation, which is essential for understanding others.
Today, technology is everywhere you look. In some form or another, it plays a role in everyone’s life. The role of technology, specifically digital technology, has been contentious and has undergone serious changes since its inception in the 1970s, with the popularization of digital computers. Today, most people possess high-powered devices in their pockets and high-powered computers in their backpacks. Digital technology has evolved from a mere tool at users’ disposal to a means of distraction from everyday life. This change is discussed in the essay “In Defense of Distraction,” written by Sam Anderson. Anderson, an American author and staff writer at The New York Times Magazine, uses his essay to argue that while often seen as negative, distractions can be beneficial, offering a necessary break from intense focus and promoting creativity and exploration, rather than being solely detrimental to productivity. Conversely, Kaia Anderson, a first-year student at the University of New England, employs her essay “Helping the Addict: A Call to Action” to highlight the addiction caused by the constant distraction of digital technology. In a similar vein, Myli Petrocci, also a first-year student at the University of New England, points out the negative effects of technology-induced distraction on college students. As a member of Gen Z, I have grown up with easy access to technology, and I believe that the distractions it provides contribute to technological addiction.
Technology, although it has gotten quite expensive, has become far more accessible which means more and more people suffering from the distractions that it provides. As a college student you would expect that every student has their own phone or computer and that is the case. But as you go down the age groups, you would think that phone and computer usage would decrease. But that is not the case. As technology has become increasingly popular, it has become increasingly easier to attain, no matter your age. The high technological usage in the younger generations is discussed in Anderon’s article. He writes, “schoolkids spread their attention across 30 different programs at once and interact with each other mainly as sweatless avatars. (One recent study found that American teenagers spend an average of 6.5 hours a day focused on the electronic world, which strikes me as a little low; in South Korea, the most wired nation on earth, young adults have actually died from exhaustion after multiday online-gaming marathons.)” (page number) In this quote, Sam Anderson is addressing the amount of time kids spend on technology in school and how some kids take part in multiday gaming marathons which have had deadly results. Similarly, Petrocci provides her readers with firsthand experiences surrounding technology and its grasp on its users. She writes, “I find that if I let myself rot on a screen before bed, I lose track of time, time goes by so fast, I have no idea how much I just wasted and earn absolutely nothing from it. Specifically, a few nights ago when I was so excited to finally be done with studying and in bed before midnight even, my body was ready for sleep, and I told my roommates I was going to bed and excited about it.” (Petrocci). Here, Petrocci is explaining the effects talked about in Sam Anderon’s quote. She is backing the claims that he made using her own experiences as a college student. Where these quotes differ is the application of them. In Anderson’s article, he develops this quote into the claim that kids growing up now might have an associative genius that we don’t and that they have a Zenlike state of focused distraction. Petrocci uses her quote, rather her experience, to highlight just how bad technology can be and the grasp that it has on the young minds of today. As someone who has grown up with technology, whether it be my Leapfrog educational tablet or my iPhone, I have had technology at my fingertips. And because of this easy access, I have felt a serious decline in my attention span. I have found it increasingly difficult to focus on one topic at a time. As I type this essay, I have bounced between four different tabs, texted 3 different people, and watched TikTok on my phone. This is not a unique experience however and that is seen in Petrocci’s essay. Teens and young adults today have lost the ability to focus on relatively easy tasks because it requires them to spend more than 3 minutes on a task. Apps such as TikTok and Instagram feed their users with 15-30 second clips that provide them with some quick burst of stimulation and then it forces them to move on. This quick burst of stimulation has molded the human mind of today to be reliant of quick and easy tasks rather than tasks that require serious cognitive thinking.
Whether we like it or not, technology is all around us. Going through my morning routine, I can count many ways that technology has embedded itself as an essential part that I cannot function without. I wake up to my phone alarm, start playing music from my speaker, use my electric toothbrush, and take my computer off the charger as I pack my bag to go to class. As the years have gone by, this incessant use of technology has only deepened. Technology can now be used to perform essentially any task we can think of. In discussion about these impacts of technology, there are older generations who take the glaringly negative view that increased technology use only causes deficit in necessary human functions like empathy, such as Sherry Turkle, a social science professor at MIT in her essay titled, “The Empathy Diaries.” Conversely, there are younger voices in this conversation who take a more complicated stance on technology, like English composition students at the University of New England, Kaia Anderson in her essay titled, “Helping the Addict: A Call To Action” and James Terault in his essay titled, “____”. All of these essays approach the dilemma of the impacts of technology in differing ways, and what the future looks like for those who are so reliant on it. After analyzing these sources, I believe that since technology, mainly the internet, is so embedded in our lives, it is bound to come with a balance of benefits and drawbacks,especially in the context of communication and distraction. The drawbacks begin to outweigh the benefits once our incessant use of technology goes unchecked, and there is a greater presence of these detrimental impacts. Debate arises in these ideas, however, with how close we are to this “point of no return” and if rectifying these habits is even possible
Paragraph 1: Technology has harmful impacts, but is also a vital tool and has some advantages
Turkle quote: “…we often find ourselves bored because we have become accustomed to a constant feed of connection, information, and entertainment. We are forever elsewhere. At class or at church, or business meetings, we pay attention to what interests us, and when it doesn’t, we look to our devices to find something that does” (Turkle, 344)
Turkle is saying that the internet has made us bored with our everyday lives, and increases our distraction from the world around us by providing a quick and easy way to get stimulation. This need for constant stimulation pushes us further away from each other and further into isolation due to technology
I understand where Turkle is coming from, and speaking from personal experience, I can attest to the fact that technology is making us more distracted. I am embarrassed to admit that on many occasions, I have opted to scroll mindlessly through social media rather than strike up conversation with people around me. There is something so addictive about having access to vast amounts of information, all tailored to your specific needs. Why would someone want to put in all of the effort to find stimulation in complex and unpredictable conversation when the ease and familiarity of the internet is right at our fingertips? Conversely, despite Anderson agreeing with technology making us more distracted, she believes that this is a separate issue from communication. In fact, she believes that technology is beneficial in this way, and increases communication.
Anderson quote: “Having access to a near limitless amount of knowledge in the palm of our hands had led to once unthinkable advancements in human efficiency and connectivity. Questions can be answered in mere seconds; calculations done in half that time. We can talk, text, or video chat anyone at anytime, anywhere.” (Anderson 2)
Anderson is saying that technology’s emphasis on efficiency has allowed for an increase in connection and the transfer of information. The internet has become a way for old friends and family to stay in contact, and even for new connections to be formed between people who would otherwise have never come in contact otherwise. Additionally, the internet allows for more people to educate themselves and be more informed about important topics. This increase in accessibility is so important because it gives previously under informed demographics, like teenagers, a better chance to participate in important conversations and have their voices heard
I think
Terault quote: “ I have spent a lot of dinners sitting at the table watching as my friends – rather than strike up a conversation – look at their phones the whole time. It’s very strange to watch as they talk to 50 different people but don’t say a word outside the phone. However, I can consider myself lucky, as those times have passed. I have reached a certain age along with my friends that we talk together much more now, not looking at our phones nearly as much, and my family has never had that problem, especially at the dinner table.
Terault is saying
I think/going further
I could make a strong bet that you will get a notification while reading this essay. I don’t blame you if you want to check it. Odds are, you probably will. Where’s it from? Is it a snapchat? Someone liked your Instagram post? Best friend sent you Tiktok? With the uproar of iPhones and cutting-edge technology, distractions consume us more than ever. We are attuned to the buzz of a notification and ready and willing to avert our attention once it occurs, which we all know is very frequently. In his article, “In Defense of Distraction” Sam Anderson, write for The New York Times Magazine, acknowledges how technology is hindering our ability to effectively concentrate yet argues that our ability to be easily distracted is an adaptive feature in the current generation that allows us to effectively navigate a fast-paced, technologically-engulfed world. Although Anderson highlights how distraction can be utilized as a tool when used properly, student narratives from an English composition course at UNE demonstrate how the constant distraction from their phones negatively impact them. Both Katie McGuire and Faith Santiago, first year undergraduate students at the University of New England, express concerns on their personal abilities to effectively concentrate on a task in the presence of their phones. When taking a stance on the complex relationship between distraction and focus, I agree that an optimal level of distraction aids in one’s efficiency, however a constant attentional shift, especially one from our phones, has such a detrimental impact on our concentration that it hinders one’s potential to complete a task to its best ability.
We require some level of distraction from our environments as it allows us to seamlessly go from task to task in our daily routine. Distraction in its simplest definition is anything that requires us to shift our focus to something else. If we were unable to indulge in the distractions around us, we would spend far too much time on simple or unimportant tasks, thus hindering our productivity and efficiency. Anderson explains the power of distraction when he writes, “The truly wise mind will harness, rather than abandon, the power of distraction. Unwavering focus, the inability to be distracted, can actually be just as problematic as ADHD. Trouble with attentional shift is a feature common to a handful of mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and OCD. It’s been hypothesized that ADHD might even be an advantage in certain change-rich environments” (11). In other words, being able to effectively shift one’s attention allows one to efficiently navigate ever-changing environments, which is a good description of the world we live in today, while hyper fixation has its dangers. It can be time-consuming and is the underlying principle behind unhealthy metal habits such as overthinking, obsession, and compulsion. Yet, despite the benefits that stem from distraction, it is crucial to acknowledge that too much distraction can be equally harmful to efficiency and productivity as hyper fixation. In addition, the source of distraction is an important aspect of this conversation. Anderson may have a point about the importance of distraction, however phones are such an extreme that his argument becomes faulty. Phones lead to excessive and constant attentional shifts, to the point where concentration can only occur for short spurts of a few minutes or less. This lack of consistent focus manifests in decreased productivity and the mediocre completion of tasks.
Anderson Quotes:
“It’s possible that we’re all evolving toward a new techo-cognitive nomadism, a rapidly shifting environment in which restlessness will be advantage again. The deep focusers might even be hampered by having too much attention: Attention Surfeit Hypoactivity Disorder.” (11)
“There’s been lots of hand-wringing about all the skills [digital natives] might lack, mainly the ability to concentrate on a complex task from beginning to end, but surely they can already do things their elders can’t, like conduct 34 conversations simultaneously across six different media, or pay attention to switching between attentional targets in a way that been considered impossible. More than any other organ, the brain is designed to change based on experience, a feature called neuroplasticity.” (11-12)
Katie Quotes:
“There is a big temptation to either procrastinate or multitask. This often leads to making my work less thorough. I often find myself skimming readings and articles rather than engaging and learning. With easy access to fly through online books and find what I’m looking for right away, I lose the opportunity to think, gain more knowledge and make my writing detailed. Technology can take away from engaging in school and work and cause myself and others to think less.
Along with multitasking, trying to stay in the present becomes difficult. Constantly getting notifications and having multiple apps and websites shifts my focus.”
Faith Quotes:
“When I go on social media, I am immediately flooded with content tailored to my interests, and that is no longer than 60 seconds. I never have to give it my full attention, or go out of my way to find content that I want to see. These apps are very influential, and have had a massive impact on the way that their users process information.”
“When I go on social media, I am immediately flooded with content tailored to my interests, and that is no longer than 60 seconds. I never have to give it my full attention, or go out of my way to find content that I want to see. These apps are very influential, and have had a massive impact on the way that their users process information”
Distraction is an adaptation
Is it truly adaptive??
Love can be found anywhere in the world. We see in relationships how two people, or more, can love each other, as well as being able to love ourselves. This can be the same for technology because we love the way it feels to “bed rot” and scroll mindlessly through Tik Tok after a long day. Technology consists of the Internet, as well as phones and computers that ultimately connect us to the digital world. However, the connection between us and technology has had detrimental effects on our mental and physical health. Sherry Turkle, a psychologist and sociologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, illustrates the dark truth about technology in her essay “The Empathy Diaries.” It is the idea that we enjoy losing ourselves to our connection with technology and Myli Petrocci, a first-year student at the University of New England, highlights that we should feel freedom outside of our screens. There is a sense of convenience with always being connected to our loved ones and another first year student at UNE, Katie McGuire, makes this point, while also arguing that technology is causing anxiety and depression. Being born in the age of technology has made me come to the realization that technology impacts individuals differently and it is the way that we use it that shapes who we are as people. Even though we can connect with others through technology, our constant state of distraction and stress has resulted in negative effects on mental health such as depression, anxiety, and eating disorders.
Like many people in today’s world, technology has become a part of our daily rituals. We wake up, we check our phone, and when we are at work, we are aimlessly scrolling through our emails, and even while we are driving, we yearn for more screen time. It has become addicting to check our phones out of habit, and I bet that you have already looked over at it to see what notification you have received. I do not consider myself as someone that relies on their phone for a sense of belonging, but for me to feel like I fit in with others around my age, I have become someone that compares myself to others. Petrocci makes the same point by saying that “I used to care so much about social media, checking likes and comments, counting and analyzing, and the most frequent habit was comparing. It’s hard not to compare yourself when people put their whole being on social media, only sharing their most impressive attributes.” The reason we are in a constant state of distraction is because we are always comparing ourselves to others, even if we do not intend to. People tend to show only certain aspects of their lives on social media to get followers and have others like them. This concept makes me question how many people like us for who we are or simply like our posts while making fun of us behind their screen. This toxic relationship between people and social media has made me realize that I too have fallen down this rabbit hole. I could talk for hours about other people’s posts, but I would never say anything about them to their face. Constant “shit-talking” and screenshotting people’s post to spread around causes me anxiety and makes me feel like I am on edge. The presence of technology has been engrained in my very being even though I understand that it is not healthy for me.
The ability to converse with others comes with practice, but what happens when we stop talking to each other? The younger generation has specifically been targeted with the constant need to text each other, rather than speaking in person. McGuire shares her own personal experience by saying that “It has become rare that you see a kid or my age group without their phone or a form of technology at places like restaurants or the dining hall. This restricts the ability to have genuine conversations and develop relationships. I find myself turning to my phone instead of thinking and finding interest in a conversation.” As a college student, McGuire continues to experience how her and others avoid conversation by hiding behind their screens. People are scared to make eye contact these days because they are always distracted by their phones, resulting in them preferring conversation over text messages. Turkle argues that “these days we find ways around conversation. We hide from each other even as we’re constantly connected to each other. For on our screens, we are tempted to present ourselves as we would like to be. Of course, performance is part of any meeting, anywhere, but online and at our leisure, it is easy to compose, edit, and improve as we revise” (344). Avoiding in-person conversation allows people to present themselves in a way that hides their faults and insecurities even when given the opportunity to speak with others.
Over the past few months, we have followed a learning path on how to promptly associate information from multiple sources and blend them into a story of our own. By picking and choosing what type of information we want to associate with allows us to be precise in the topics and motives that guide us in creative writing. Each creator has a unique perspective and design to the way they write and over the length of the course, we have grown individually as creators and designers utilizing the tool known as a summary. By drawing on ideas from other authors, it opens the realm of brand-new perspectives and viewpoints. Of course, making sure to give the appropriate credit to the original creator, their products open the world to limitless opportunities. In the education setting, students like us reflect on the work of others in many situations. Anything from a research proposal to computer science analytics, the use of previously created information to further better our knowledge of an individual topic is at an all-time high. From our time in class, we have moved into the world of summarizing the ideas on how technology has changed our society, both as a whole and the different impacts it has had on us individually. We as humans are in a constant cycle of evolution and growth. We constantly explore for improvement and satisfaction when it comes to the needs and wants that we have in our tangible world. Part of it comes from the drive to become a better version of oneself, maybe it comes from a mindset of proving someone wrong through success. Whatever our ambition comes from, we all have come to a place where the student partakes in repetitive activities that drill the cadence into their minds, so that it can be repeated in a similar way in the future.
The degradation of society and interactions we have with each other cannot be pinpointed to just one thing like technology. It is almost an impossible statement to make that just because we have nearly limitless access to online databanks with billions of sites and links, that this is the downfall of human intellect as a whole. Just the idea that one thing could be that destructive, something that we created to aid us, not tear us down, challenges the concepts of what humanity truly sees in itself when it comes to wanting a new solution to existing circumstances. These devices that we have in our pockets and that we carry around in backpacks give us so much opportunity to learn and grow and expand our roots of what we could know. These devices that are so powerful, they have more computing power than the Lego sets that sent the first men to the moon. These devices that can connect families together halfway across the globe from each other without any delay. These devices that give us access to the new information to better ourselves, but also have the ability to distract and block out the reality around us. The reality in which we are most certainly losing a grip on. Something so delicate and vulnerable, being cast aside for virtual information, invalid ideas, and dystopian-like futures promised to those who stay connected to their devices and disconnect from the real. Maybe the authors of the articles we have read are right in their ideas that technology is rusting away our infrastructure of knowledge. We used to say that it would be impossible for technology to become a dominating factor in how life can change. Just a short twenty years ago we were still trying to figure out how email worked. The first phones never had a screen that you could interact with, in most cases the whole phone weighed about three pounds. There was just a number pad and pick-up and end button. The only distraction came from the person on the other end never wanting to hang up. Yes, life may have seemed different then, maybe simpler. But credit is due to those who had the drive to advance the technology to make it better and stronger in so many ways.
Today, however, you can’t go more than ten minutes without thinking about any kind of technology. It is around every corner of life, from the ones we have on us to the even trying to complete an assignment on how technology distracts us. It is everywhere. And quite honestly, the future of tech use will only change from here on out. In a few short years, people think that schools will have AI robotics as teachers, giving full lessons to students. Personally, I think this is a horrible idea. There should be no place on Earth where a fully sentient AI robot should be fulfilling the role of a teacher and giving out a mass amount of information. This situation would most certainly end in the complete destruction of all creative work and ideas for advancing human culture. We are already seeing the death of speech from the lack of communication between people. But if we begin to learn from robots, then the humanities will never be able to be reclaimed.
Four hours. That’s how long it’s taken me to come up with this sentence, which is a stupid and embarrassing amount of time just to think of this mediocre hook to a paper. I blame social media, the internet, and myself of course. Those 4 hours were wasted scrolling through Instagram because I no longer possess the thinking ability or attention span to sit at my desk without my phone and do work like a functional human being. Unfortunately, I know for a fact that I’m not the only one who struggles with the loss of deep thinking. With the recent rise of advancements in modern technology tons of people go through the same struggle of being unable to think deeply or accomplish work without the looming and evergrowing urge to pick up their phone consuming them. The loss of deep thinking and inability to accomplish work was written about by American Journalist/Author and Harvard graduate, Nicholas Carr in his writing Is Google Making Us Stupid? Where He explores the mental effects that the online world is having on people. On a similar note, Mae Buchanan a freshman at the University of New England wrote “Technology’s Effect on our Deeper Thinking” Analyzing the effects social media has on our deeper thinking. Another similar writing by Natalie Bell also a freshman at the University of New England, in her writing “The Powers and Drawbacks of Technology”, she too discusses the negative effects of technology. From what I’ve experienced and from what I’ve heard from peers, I believe that technology has stunted our ability to think deeply or accomplish work.
The way we take in information and process it is different for everyone, whether it’s our ability to read and absorb the information or our ability to pick out misinformation from real information online. On the topic of reading Carr writes about a study conducted by University College London focused on the “study of online research habits” The scholars examined computer logs and documented the behavior of the visitors on two popular research websites. The first site is run by the British Library, and the second site is run by a U.K. educational consortium. Both sites give access to e-books, journal articles, and many other sources of written information. Carr writes:
“They found that people using websites exhibited “a form of skimming activity,” hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they’d already visited. They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would “bounce” out to another site.”(3)
While the study comes across as a little creepy to me, by which I mean tracking people’s activity on websites and recording it. The study shows concrete evidence of people being unable to hold their attention on one thing long enough to obtain any information but whatever is shallow and right on the surface. Skimming shows either our inability or unwillingness to think deeper so we (as said by Carr) “bounce” from place to place, one paragraph to the next, one article to another, only grazing the information and never pulling any real value from it. Possibly from the sheer laziness that the internet has inflicted upon us by giving us everything we want, the second we want it without needing to do in-depth searches or work for it. On the very same topic of skimming articles Bell writes, “Since I have nonstop access to Internet, I can access anything. I need to at any given point. When getting assigned readings for homework, I have found myself skimming over the passages to get it done faster. Nothing makes me not able to retain all the information I was supposed to causing me to take more time and reread the assignment.”(Bell). I too can relate to this experience. Tons of time has been spent “reading” and skimming and rereading assigned articles, more time than I’d like to admit, time that could be used to do other things. Yet, I sit there looking over the same words for what feels like forever just trying to think deep enough to grasp a hint of information or meaning from the page. Shifting the focus to social media Buchanan writes,
“With the influx of social media this can be seen better than ever before. And the main transition we are seeing is people going from deep thinking to shallow thinking. Everywhere you look, there are gossip websites that portray themselves as news sites. And many people fail to see this and end up believing what these sites post.”(Buchanan).
“We tend to become “mere decoders of information.” our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largly disengaged.”(3).
Give background information on this quote
“All of which is a result of shallow thinking. The information that we consume on the daily needs to be processed quickly in order for us to comprehend the hundreds of videos. And post we scroll through on the daily. And with the fast consumption of Information people are also quick to comment, repost and share.”
“Interpreting the reading is one major step in reading as well. If you don’t understand the main point or even topic of the essay, did you even retain anything that the article was about”
Technology has integrated into our lives so much we have begun to love it. We treat our phones with care, making sure they are protected, updating our computers to the newest model so they run smoothly. This leads to the idea of technology and the internet being a parasitic relationship at times. And as weird and strange as it sounds, we all have a relationship with our technology. And I question on which side leaches and takes more from the other, or does it boil down to a toxic relationship on both sides. To analyze this idea, I want to bring in Kevin Kelley’s Technophilia, Franco Leehive’s essay, Technology: The World’s Greatest Resource, and Noah Kesler’s essay, into conversation. Through analysis of our relationship with technology I intend to dig deep into the trials and tribulations of this love. While there are pros to technology being deeply ingrained in our lives, does it require or deserve the relationship we have built with it? I say no, we have become too reliant on technology to the point where it dictates our lives. However, I am not saying that technology isn’t necessary in our day to day lives but I don’t believe that there is a need to covet it the way we do.
The debate about how technology and if it runs our lives is on going. And I want to talk about how not only have we become extremely distracted with the internet and technology but some have even begun to love and admire it. Author Kevin Kelley wrote, Technophilia, as almost a love letter to technology. He claims that technology only wants to become useless and beautiful and that their beauty will one day rival that of the natural world. *quote*.
Franco Leehive ENG 110 student agrees with Kelley on the basis that technology can be a good and beautiful thing, however he sees that technology also has the ability to destroy. “The world’s greatest tool to mankind is technology this tool can be used for immense greatness or it can be used to destroy the world” (Leehive). And to my point we have created such a relationship with technology that we have given it the power over us to destroy us one day. This idea is a scary one and not one to be taken lightly. *Kelley quote and analysis – linkingto Leehive*
Noah Kesler, ENG 110 student, brings in the idea that when technology is not near is we feel disconnected and compares the connection we have to our phone to similar to the one we share with family, “Some of us have the same connection to our phones that we do with our closest friends or maybe even family.” (Kesler). We have come to a point where when we are not in arms reach of our phone we miss it like a long distance boyfriend. And this can be dangerous, relaying so heavily on technology that we have allowed it to creep into our minds and give us a comforting feeling when it is around. *Kelley missing limb quote*
I don’t like the idea that technology has become to imbedded into our lives and minds that we struggle to go without it for even a day. And yet I struggle to see a world where a significant distance put between us and technology would be able to work. We rely so heavily on technology live our phone to aid in completing tasks that we struggle to preform well without them. They have become a crutch that we stand on and are refusing to heal from. I cannot pretend that I am better than other because it do not hold my phone and other technologies in a high regard because that would be false. I find myself coveting my technologies and when I come to the realization that I was I feel the need to take a step back. Some days I want to put a large barrier between me and my phone, even feel like I should leave it in my room, but then I realize that I need it for things like logging into my school account, keeping track of time, connecting with my friends for lunch. Took much of me relays on technology that doing away with it would be hurtful. So while I am not as awestruck and lost to technology as Kelley I still feel a sense of lose when it is not around or even heartbreak when my one technology is broken like my boyfriend had just broken up with me. And the thought that I can compare a breakup with a damaged computer is worrying and scary.
Myli Petrocci
Professor Jesse Miller
English 110
22 April 2025
Teens and Technology: Growing Up in a Connected World
Looking back, I believe our parents were right. I remember begging my parents for a phone in middle school, wanting to be just like my other friends. Their hesitation, similar to many parents around the world, was an instinct that we all should have paid closer attention to. Although, researchers have been paying attention to this, analyzing each move we make. Each of which we are getting closer to our own demise. Shelley Turkle, a clinical psychologist and professor at MIT, effectively illustrates the truth about modern technology in her article The Empathy Diaries. She is known for her research on how the internet has negatively affected human behavior, especially in youth. Her ideas follow a similar trend in what the youth is recently discovering, that screens have actually impacted us in an unfavorable way. Peyton Perkins, a first year student at the University of New England, reflects upon the deep integration of technology into daily life, portraying it as both a convenience and a dependency in her article Where Did We Go Wrong? Similarly, Kaia Anderson who is also a first year student at the University of New England, argues that cooperation across generations to address technology addiction is greatly needed in her article Helping the Addict: A Call To Action. Each author offers insight shaped by their current stage in life. Being that Turkle published her article in 2021, which is not too far away from our current year, it’s impactful to see how her prediction has become true. We are lost as a generation, needing guidance from our elders as Anderson attributes to, and most importantly need to reclaim our unique personalities by putting down our phones. The only way teenagers and adults alike can reclaim their identity in a meaningful way is to put down their phones.
The claim that social media has impacted us mentally due to overuse is absolutely correct, mostly because we not only can see it impacting others, but now ourselves more than ever. Turkle is sure to include her analysis of how young adults’ mental health has been impacted. She says, “When personal computers became online games, children experimented with identity by building avatars.” She then continues to say “Also constant was the anxiety of adults around children and machines…They watched, unhappy, as children became lost in games and forgot about the people around them, preferring, at long stretches, the world’s in the machine.” (Turkle 345,346 **how do i format this) In other words, the adult’s anxiety of children becoming lost in their new personalities online is unfortunate for both parties. There are misunderstandings and lack of knowledge all around. The parents’ judgment was partially correct, but coming from a place of fear, which led to children being even more indifferent to their opinions. Parents were right to be concerned about children becoming consumed by games, a growing and troubling trend, because many of those children now struggle to find purpose or direction without them. Perkins continues this idea and provides insight from a college student’s perspective. She conveys, “We are in a constant state of ‘where is my phone?’ Feeling uncomfortable in the elevator; check your phone. Nervous before an interview; check your phone. We want to access technology not necessarily because it is helpful, but because we have made it an extension of who we are” (Perkins page #?). In other words, growing up surrounded by screens has affected us so deeply that functioning without them feels nearly impossible. It defines us, offers us comfort, and ultimately becomes a part of our identity. While some may not see it as a problem, this is a growing issue. Especially for those aiming to advance their careers, where the impact of screens on a person’s professional development becomes increasingly apparent. Being unable to portray our unique selves without social media will not further us in our career or social goals. We need to reclaim our personalities.
As students, we can tell in the classrooms who the outliers are. The people who watch TikTok or play games on their phone instead of paying attention to the lecture, or those who lack communication skills during group projects really stand out. The amount of students who haven’t learned viable skills in middle and high school, which are needed for college and our career goals, is growing exponentially. This is due to technology being let into classrooms. Anderson, a student, argues “The presence of technology has had negative effects on behavior, especially when it comes to attention span and engaging with others” (Anderson, page #). Attention span is the real kicker. Short videos, such as TikTok or Instagram, makes sitting through lectures and reading slides much more difficult for this generation. Anderson illustrates this perfectly in her article. It’s very interesting to see the impacts Anderson describes, which are growing exactly how another author, Turkle, described they would be. In Turkle’s writing she includes a distraught teacher who describes the new school setting, “It is a struggle to get children to talk to each other in class, to directly address each other. It is a struggle to get them to meet with faculty…These students seem to understand each other less” (Turkle 344). In a similar way of describing this predicament, students’ lack of social skills only worsens as they continue to not practice it in school. Keep in mind this was from 2008. Personally I believe that it’s the teachers job to push their students to talk and interact. If there are issues, fix them head on with the individual students. I think that teachers get nervous to put students in awkward situations, especially at a young age, but that’s exactly what they need. Now I know many try over and over, and their frustration only grows with the introduction of phones as a distraction which worsens the situation, but it is still their job to try and care.
Katie McGuire
Professor Miller
English Composition 110
22 April 2025
In The Empathy Diaries, Sherry Turkle shares her own experience from researching trying to make sense of the emotional and social cost of how much we rely on technology for our daily life and communication. Her research challenges us readers to think about the ways technology has affected us. She shows us the ways of how it is making us unable to have real human connection and think for ourselves. This topic also shows throughout first year students Faith Santiago’s and Tyler’s Pelletier cases. They both discuss the impact modern technology has had on their behavior, their attitudes, and how they connect with other human beings. Faith brings up technology’s two-way street in which technology makes information accessible to us, but in doing so it harms our intellectual engagement at the same time. Whereas Tyler explains how constantly using technology has made it harder to deal with real life relationships and experiences. Through Turkle, Faith and Tyler we see a constant worry about losing ourselves through technology and the features that keep advancing. They all show that technology is giving us more connectivity but quietly damaging the very human connection that it is supposed to be growing as we mature. Not only is our reliance on technology changing what we do, it’s changing who we are, and not necessarily for the better.
Turkle, Faith, and Tyler all discuss the fact that possibly one of the greatest impacts of technology is how it has progressively harmed our capacity to think by ourselves and in detail. Turkle writes in The Empathy Diaries about how the research she did uncovered signs like us students who were once able to concentrate for hours, are now constantly distracted and emotionally unavailable. This is through something she says happens as a result from our excessive use of screens. She states, “We find ways of getting around talk. We camouflage ourselves from one another even while we are continually linked to one another” (Turkle). Turkle is not just discussing our tendency to text more than speak. She is talking about our loss in human connection and the way we interact with others. Faith also reflects this problem when she states, “These apps have conditioned me into preferring the way that they release information, because the more I rely on them for entertainment or as a time filler, the more they profit.” Both Turkle and Faith speak of the cycle we are experiencing. The more easily content can be accessed with less effort, the less we think critically or reflectively. Turkle calls it an empathy crisis, and Faith calls it an intellectual independence breakdown. Devices meant for ourselves are now conditioning us to need speed and ease instead of reflection and depth. As technology reduces our patience for effort, we begin to lose something essential. It is harming our ability to learn, connect, and belong in the world.
A common theme through the three pieces is how technology makes things more accessible, taking away authenticity in our work and interactions too. Tyler’s essay is stating this point of how he describes how AI writing programs and autocorrect has harmed his level of confidence in his own skills: “This tool has been a virus of the human brain, eliminating the need to think for themselves.” His point regarding his mother utilizing AI to produce report cards for students is showing how even the most people-oriented profession can lose touch with reality by using the work of feeling and thinking to machines. Turkle would likely agree. She warns that “what computers deliver is not intimacy but the illusion of intimacy” (Turkle). Each time, one feels that something valuable is being lost. She says, “Technology that is of no intellectual interest to its consumers tends to have a purpose of making people dependent upon it in return for maximum return.” We are losing our significance which is much greater than losing our ability. The moment technology comes in to do something with our thinking or feeling, the more efficient, but less human, we will be.
Though Turkle discusses in detail the emotional loneliness brought about by technology, Tyler offers an intimate approach through his narrative of how behavior on the Internet has affected his social anxiety. He states, “In real, non-technological interaction, it’s very difficult to be vulnerable because there’s so much uncertainty.” His discomfort with situations, like delivering a speech or attending a party alone, is typical of a trend among our generation that Turkle also observes among her students. They have a preference for the edited and controlled world of online life. Turkle informs us, “We use technology to keep one another at distances we can control: not too close, not too far, just right” (Turkle).
10 thoughts on “JOURNAL # 26”
Faith explains how platforms like YouTube and online articles have helped her think critically and learn more deeply.
Turkle also acknowledges that technology can be used for learning and connection but warns that we must be intentional about how we use it.
Faith argues that social media has weakened her attention span and made deep focus feel “unappealing.”
Turkle discusses how digital distractions rob people of the ability to reflect, be alone with their thoughts, or engage in deep work. She calls this the loss of solitude.
Faith describes how apps like TikTok are engineered for addiction and keep users hooked with short, dopamine-releasing content.
Turkle similarly warns that these platforms are designed to keep us engaged, not enriched. She explores the ethical consequences of tech companies monetizing attention.
Faith reflects on how the internet can cause people to follow the herd, and how opinions can feel swayed by popular consensus rather than logic
Turkle believes technology has created a culture of performance over authenticity. People seek validation and avoid disagreement, reducing genuine dialogue and self-reflection.
Faith touches on the idea that people no longer think independently or deeply, which weakens their ability to engage in meaningful discourse
Turkle’s The Empathy Diaries focuses heavily on how tech is reducing face-to-face interaction, making us less empathetic. She argues that we’re losing the art of conversation, which is essential for understanding others.
Today, technology is everywhere you look. In some form or another, it plays a role in everyone’s life. The role of technology, specifically digital technology, has been contentious and has undergone serious changes since its inception in the 1970s, with the popularization of digital computers. Today, most people possess high-powered devices in their pockets and high-powered computers in their backpacks. Digital technology has evolved from a mere tool at users’ disposal to a means of distraction from everyday life. This change is discussed in the essay “In Defense of Distraction,” written by Sam Anderson. Anderson, an American author and staff writer at The New York Times Magazine, uses his essay to argue that while often seen as negative, distractions can be beneficial, offering a necessary break from intense focus and promoting creativity and exploration, rather than being solely detrimental to productivity. Conversely, Kaia Anderson, a first-year student at the University of New England, employs her essay “Helping the Addict: A Call to Action” to highlight the addiction caused by the constant distraction of digital technology. In a similar vein, Myli Petrocci, also a first-year student at the University of New England, points out the negative effects of technology-induced distraction on college students. As a member of Gen Z, I have grown up with easy access to technology, and I believe that the distractions it provides contribute to technological addiction.
Technology, although it has gotten quite expensive, has become far more accessible which means more and more people suffering from the distractions that it provides. As a college student you would expect that every student has their own phone or computer and that is the case. But as you go down the age groups, you would think that phone and computer usage would decrease. But that is not the case. As technology has become increasingly popular, it has become increasingly easier to attain, no matter your age. The high technological usage in the younger generations is discussed in Anderon’s article. He writes, “schoolkids spread their attention across 30 different programs at once and interact with each other mainly as sweatless avatars. (One recent study found that American teenagers spend an average of 6.5 hours a day focused on the electronic world, which strikes me as a little low; in South Korea, the most wired nation on earth, young adults have actually died from exhaustion after multiday online-gaming marathons.)” (page number) In this quote, Sam Anderson is addressing the amount of time kids spend on technology in school and how some kids take part in multiday gaming marathons which have had deadly results. Similarly, Petrocci provides her readers with firsthand experiences surrounding technology and its grasp on its users. She writes, “I find that if I let myself rot on a screen before bed, I lose track of time, time goes by so fast, I have no idea how much I just wasted and earn absolutely nothing from it. Specifically, a few nights ago when I was so excited to finally be done with studying and in bed before midnight even, my body was ready for sleep, and I told my roommates I was going to bed and excited about it.” (Petrocci). Here, Petrocci is explaining the effects talked about in Sam Anderon’s quote. She is backing the claims that he made using her own experiences as a college student. Where these quotes differ is the application of them. In Anderson’s article, he develops this quote into the claim that kids growing up now might have an associative genius that we don’t and that they have a Zenlike state of focused distraction. Petrocci uses her quote, rather her experience, to highlight just how bad technology can be and the grasp that it has on the young minds of today. As someone who has grown up with technology, whether it be my Leapfrog educational tablet or my iPhone, I have had technology at my fingertips. And because of this easy access, I have felt a serious decline in my attention span. I have found it increasingly difficult to focus on one topic at a time. As I type this essay, I have bounced between four different tabs, texted 3 different people, and watched TikTok on my phone. This is not a unique experience however and that is seen in Petrocci’s essay. Teens and young adults today have lost the ability to focus on relatively easy tasks because it requires them to spend more than 3 minutes on a task. Apps such as TikTok and Instagram feed their users with 15-30 second clips that provide them with some quick burst of stimulation and then it forces them to move on. This quick burst of stimulation has molded the human mind of today to be reliant of quick and easy tasks rather than tasks that require serious cognitive thinking.
Whether we like it or not, technology is all around us. Going through my morning routine, I can count many ways that technology has embedded itself as an essential part that I cannot function without. I wake up to my phone alarm, start playing music from my speaker, use my electric toothbrush, and take my computer off the charger as I pack my bag to go to class. As the years have gone by, this incessant use of technology has only deepened. Technology can now be used to perform essentially any task we can think of. In discussion about these impacts of technology, there are older generations who take the glaringly negative view that increased technology use only causes deficit in necessary human functions like empathy, such as Sherry Turkle, a social science professor at MIT in her essay titled, “The Empathy Diaries.” Conversely, there are younger voices in this conversation who take a more complicated stance on technology, like English composition students at the University of New England, Kaia Anderson in her essay titled, “Helping the Addict: A Call To Action” and James Terault in his essay titled, “____”. All of these essays approach the dilemma of the impacts of technology in differing ways, and what the future looks like for those who are so reliant on it. After analyzing these sources, I believe that since technology, mainly the internet, is so embedded in our lives, it is bound to come with a balance of benefits and drawbacks,especially in the context of communication and distraction. The drawbacks begin to outweigh the benefits once our incessant use of technology goes unchecked, and there is a greater presence of these detrimental impacts. Debate arises in these ideas, however, with how close we are to this “point of no return” and if rectifying these habits is even possible
Paragraph 1: Technology has harmful impacts, but is also a vital tool and has some advantages
Turkle quote: “…we often find ourselves bored because we have become accustomed to a constant feed of connection, information, and entertainment. We are forever elsewhere. At class or at church, or business meetings, we pay attention to what interests us, and when it doesn’t, we look to our devices to find something that does” (Turkle, 344)
Turkle is saying that the internet has made us bored with our everyday lives, and increases our distraction from the world around us by providing a quick and easy way to get stimulation. This need for constant stimulation pushes us further away from each other and further into isolation due to technology
I understand where Turkle is coming from, and speaking from personal experience, I can attest to the fact that technology is making us more distracted. I am embarrassed to admit that on many occasions, I have opted to scroll mindlessly through social media rather than strike up conversation with people around me. There is something so addictive about having access to vast amounts of information, all tailored to your specific needs. Why would someone want to put in all of the effort to find stimulation in complex and unpredictable conversation when the ease and familiarity of the internet is right at our fingertips? Conversely, despite Anderson agreeing with technology making us more distracted, she believes that this is a separate issue from communication. In fact, she believes that technology is beneficial in this way, and increases communication.
Anderson quote: “Having access to a near limitless amount of knowledge in the palm of our hands had led to once unthinkable advancements in human efficiency and connectivity. Questions can be answered in mere seconds; calculations done in half that time. We can talk, text, or video chat anyone at anytime, anywhere.” (Anderson 2)
Anderson is saying that technology’s emphasis on efficiency has allowed for an increase in connection and the transfer of information. The internet has become a way for old friends and family to stay in contact, and even for new connections to be formed between people who would otherwise have never come in contact otherwise. Additionally, the internet allows for more people to educate themselves and be more informed about important topics. This increase in accessibility is so important because it gives previously under informed demographics, like teenagers, a better chance to participate in important conversations and have their voices heard
I think
Terault quote: “ I have spent a lot of dinners sitting at the table watching as my friends – rather than strike up a conversation – look at their phones the whole time. It’s very strange to watch as they talk to 50 different people but don’t say a word outside the phone. However, I can consider myself lucky, as those times have passed. I have reached a certain age along with my friends that we talk together much more now, not looking at our phones nearly as much, and my family has never had that problem, especially at the dinner table.
Terault is saying
I think/going further
I could make a strong bet that you will get a notification while reading this essay. I don’t blame you if you want to check it. Odds are, you probably will. Where’s it from? Is it a snapchat? Someone liked your Instagram post? Best friend sent you Tiktok? With the uproar of iPhones and cutting-edge technology, distractions consume us more than ever. We are attuned to the buzz of a notification and ready and willing to avert our attention once it occurs, which we all know is very frequently. In his article, “In Defense of Distraction” Sam Anderson, write for The New York Times Magazine, acknowledges how technology is hindering our ability to effectively concentrate yet argues that our ability to be easily distracted is an adaptive feature in the current generation that allows us to effectively navigate a fast-paced, technologically-engulfed world. Although Anderson highlights how distraction can be utilized as a tool when used properly, student narratives from an English composition course at UNE demonstrate how the constant distraction from their phones negatively impact them. Both Katie McGuire and Faith Santiago, first year undergraduate students at the University of New England, express concerns on their personal abilities to effectively concentrate on a task in the presence of their phones. When taking a stance on the complex relationship between distraction and focus, I agree that an optimal level of distraction aids in one’s efficiency, however a constant attentional shift, especially one from our phones, has such a detrimental impact on our concentration that it hinders one’s potential to complete a task to its best ability.
We require some level of distraction from our environments as it allows us to seamlessly go from task to task in our daily routine. Distraction in its simplest definition is anything that requires us to shift our focus to something else. If we were unable to indulge in the distractions around us, we would spend far too much time on simple or unimportant tasks, thus hindering our productivity and efficiency. Anderson explains the power of distraction when he writes, “The truly wise mind will harness, rather than abandon, the power of distraction. Unwavering focus, the inability to be distracted, can actually be just as problematic as ADHD. Trouble with attentional shift is a feature common to a handful of mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and OCD. It’s been hypothesized that ADHD might even be an advantage in certain change-rich environments” (11). In other words, being able to effectively shift one’s attention allows one to efficiently navigate ever-changing environments, which is a good description of the world we live in today, while hyper fixation has its dangers. It can be time-consuming and is the underlying principle behind unhealthy metal habits such as overthinking, obsession, and compulsion. Yet, despite the benefits that stem from distraction, it is crucial to acknowledge that too much distraction can be equally harmful to efficiency and productivity as hyper fixation. In addition, the source of distraction is an important aspect of this conversation. Anderson may have a point about the importance of distraction, however phones are such an extreme that his argument becomes faulty. Phones lead to excessive and constant attentional shifts, to the point where concentration can only occur for short spurts of a few minutes or less. This lack of consistent focus manifests in decreased productivity and the mediocre completion of tasks.
Anderson Quotes:
“It’s possible that we’re all evolving toward a new techo-cognitive nomadism, a rapidly shifting environment in which restlessness will be advantage again. The deep focusers might even be hampered by having too much attention: Attention Surfeit Hypoactivity Disorder.” (11)
“There’s been lots of hand-wringing about all the skills [digital natives] might lack, mainly the ability to concentrate on a complex task from beginning to end, but surely they can already do things their elders can’t, like conduct 34 conversations simultaneously across six different media, or pay attention to switching between attentional targets in a way that been considered impossible. More than any other organ, the brain is designed to change based on experience, a feature called neuroplasticity.” (11-12)
Katie Quotes:
“There is a big temptation to either procrastinate or multitask. This often leads to making my work less thorough. I often find myself skimming readings and articles rather than engaging and learning. With easy access to fly through online books and find what I’m looking for right away, I lose the opportunity to think, gain more knowledge and make my writing detailed. Technology can take away from engaging in school and work and cause myself and others to think less.
Along with multitasking, trying to stay in the present becomes difficult. Constantly getting notifications and having multiple apps and websites shifts my focus.”
Faith Quotes:
“When I go on social media, I am immediately flooded with content tailored to my interests, and that is no longer than 60 seconds. I never have to give it my full attention, or go out of my way to find content that I want to see. These apps are very influential, and have had a massive impact on the way that their users process information.”
“When I go on social media, I am immediately flooded with content tailored to my interests, and that is no longer than 60 seconds. I never have to give it my full attention, or go out of my way to find content that I want to see. These apps are very influential, and have had a massive impact on the way that their users process information”
Distraction is an adaptation
Is it truly adaptive??
Love can be found anywhere in the world. We see in relationships how two people, or more, can love each other, as well as being able to love ourselves. This can be the same for technology because we love the way it feels to “bed rot” and scroll mindlessly through Tik Tok after a long day. Technology consists of the Internet, as well as phones and computers that ultimately connect us to the digital world. However, the connection between us and technology has had detrimental effects on our mental and physical health. Sherry Turkle, a psychologist and sociologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, illustrates the dark truth about technology in her essay “The Empathy Diaries.” It is the idea that we enjoy losing ourselves to our connection with technology and Myli Petrocci, a first-year student at the University of New England, highlights that we should feel freedom outside of our screens. There is a sense of convenience with always being connected to our loved ones and another first year student at UNE, Katie McGuire, makes this point, while also arguing that technology is causing anxiety and depression. Being born in the age of technology has made me come to the realization that technology impacts individuals differently and it is the way that we use it that shapes who we are as people. Even though we can connect with others through technology, our constant state of distraction and stress has resulted in negative effects on mental health such as depression, anxiety, and eating disorders.
Like many people in today’s world, technology has become a part of our daily rituals. We wake up, we check our phone, and when we are at work, we are aimlessly scrolling through our emails, and even while we are driving, we yearn for more screen time. It has become addicting to check our phones out of habit, and I bet that you have already looked over at it to see what notification you have received. I do not consider myself as someone that relies on their phone for a sense of belonging, but for me to feel like I fit in with others around my age, I have become someone that compares myself to others. Petrocci makes the same point by saying that “I used to care so much about social media, checking likes and comments, counting and analyzing, and the most frequent habit was comparing. It’s hard not to compare yourself when people put their whole being on social media, only sharing their most impressive attributes.” The reason we are in a constant state of distraction is because we are always comparing ourselves to others, even if we do not intend to. People tend to show only certain aspects of their lives on social media to get followers and have others like them. This concept makes me question how many people like us for who we are or simply like our posts while making fun of us behind their screen. This toxic relationship between people and social media has made me realize that I too have fallen down this rabbit hole. I could talk for hours about other people’s posts, but I would never say anything about them to their face. Constant “shit-talking” and screenshotting people’s post to spread around causes me anxiety and makes me feel like I am on edge. The presence of technology has been engrained in my very being even though I understand that it is not healthy for me.
The ability to converse with others comes with practice, but what happens when we stop talking to each other? The younger generation has specifically been targeted with the constant need to text each other, rather than speaking in person. McGuire shares her own personal experience by saying that “It has become rare that you see a kid or my age group without their phone or a form of technology at places like restaurants or the dining hall. This restricts the ability to have genuine conversations and develop relationships. I find myself turning to my phone instead of thinking and finding interest in a conversation.” As a college student, McGuire continues to experience how her and others avoid conversation by hiding behind their screens. People are scared to make eye contact these days because they are always distracted by their phones, resulting in them preferring conversation over text messages. Turkle argues that “these days we find ways around conversation. We hide from each other even as we’re constantly connected to each other. For on our screens, we are tempted to present ourselves as we would like to be. Of course, performance is part of any meeting, anywhere, but online and at our leisure, it is easy to compose, edit, and improve as we revise” (344). Avoiding in-person conversation allows people to present themselves in a way that hides their faults and insecurities even when given the opportunity to speak with others.
Over the past few months, we have followed a learning path on how to promptly associate information from multiple sources and blend them into a story of our own. By picking and choosing what type of information we want to associate with allows us to be precise in the topics and motives that guide us in creative writing. Each creator has a unique perspective and design to the way they write and over the length of the course, we have grown individually as creators and designers utilizing the tool known as a summary. By drawing on ideas from other authors, it opens the realm of brand-new perspectives and viewpoints. Of course, making sure to give the appropriate credit to the original creator, their products open the world to limitless opportunities. In the education setting, students like us reflect on the work of others in many situations. Anything from a research proposal to computer science analytics, the use of previously created information to further better our knowledge of an individual topic is at an all-time high. From our time in class, we have moved into the world of summarizing the ideas on how technology has changed our society, both as a whole and the different impacts it has had on us individually. We as humans are in a constant cycle of evolution and growth. We constantly explore for improvement and satisfaction when it comes to the needs and wants that we have in our tangible world. Part of it comes from the drive to become a better version of oneself, maybe it comes from a mindset of proving someone wrong through success. Whatever our ambition comes from, we all have come to a place where the student partakes in repetitive activities that drill the cadence into their minds, so that it can be repeated in a similar way in the future.
The degradation of society and interactions we have with each other cannot be pinpointed to just one thing like technology. It is almost an impossible statement to make that just because we have nearly limitless access to online databanks with billions of sites and links, that this is the downfall of human intellect as a whole. Just the idea that one thing could be that destructive, something that we created to aid us, not tear us down, challenges the concepts of what humanity truly sees in itself when it comes to wanting a new solution to existing circumstances. These devices that we have in our pockets and that we carry around in backpacks give us so much opportunity to learn and grow and expand our roots of what we could know. These devices that are so powerful, they have more computing power than the Lego sets that sent the first men to the moon. These devices that can connect families together halfway across the globe from each other without any delay. These devices that give us access to the new information to better ourselves, but also have the ability to distract and block out the reality around us. The reality in which we are most certainly losing a grip on. Something so delicate and vulnerable, being cast aside for virtual information, invalid ideas, and dystopian-like futures promised to those who stay connected to their devices and disconnect from the real. Maybe the authors of the articles we have read are right in their ideas that technology is rusting away our infrastructure of knowledge. We used to say that it would be impossible for technology to become a dominating factor in how life can change. Just a short twenty years ago we were still trying to figure out how email worked. The first phones never had a screen that you could interact with, in most cases the whole phone weighed about three pounds. There was just a number pad and pick-up and end button. The only distraction came from the person on the other end never wanting to hang up. Yes, life may have seemed different then, maybe simpler. But credit is due to those who had the drive to advance the technology to make it better and stronger in so many ways.
Today, however, you can’t go more than ten minutes without thinking about any kind of technology. It is around every corner of life, from the ones we have on us to the even trying to complete an assignment on how technology distracts us. It is everywhere. And quite honestly, the future of tech use will only change from here on out. In a few short years, people think that schools will have AI robotics as teachers, giving full lessons to students. Personally, I think this is a horrible idea. There should be no place on Earth where a fully sentient AI robot should be fulfilling the role of a teacher and giving out a mass amount of information. This situation would most certainly end in the complete destruction of all creative work and ideas for advancing human culture. We are already seeing the death of speech from the lack of communication between people. But if we begin to learn from robots, then the humanities will never be able to be reclaimed.
Four hours. That’s how long it’s taken me to come up with this sentence, which is a stupid and embarrassing amount of time just to think of this mediocre hook to a paper. I blame social media, the internet, and myself of course. Those 4 hours were wasted scrolling through Instagram because I no longer possess the thinking ability or attention span to sit at my desk without my phone and do work like a functional human being. Unfortunately, I know for a fact that I’m not the only one who struggles with the loss of deep thinking. With the recent rise of advancements in modern technology tons of people go through the same struggle of being unable to think deeply or accomplish work without the looming and evergrowing urge to pick up their phone consuming them. The loss of deep thinking and inability to accomplish work was written about by American Journalist/Author and Harvard graduate, Nicholas Carr in his writing Is Google Making Us Stupid? Where He explores the mental effects that the online world is having on people. On a similar note, Mae Buchanan a freshman at the University of New England wrote “Technology’s Effect on our Deeper Thinking” Analyzing the effects social media has on our deeper thinking. Another similar writing by Natalie Bell also a freshman at the University of New England, in her writing “The Powers and Drawbacks of Technology”, she too discusses the negative effects of technology. From what I’ve experienced and from what I’ve heard from peers, I believe that technology has stunted our ability to think deeply or accomplish work.
The way we take in information and process it is different for everyone, whether it’s our ability to read and absorb the information or our ability to pick out misinformation from real information online. On the topic of reading Carr writes about a study conducted by University College London focused on the “study of online research habits” The scholars examined computer logs and documented the behavior of the visitors on two popular research websites. The first site is run by the British Library, and the second site is run by a U.K. educational consortium. Both sites give access to e-books, journal articles, and many other sources of written information. Carr writes:
“They found that people using websites exhibited “a form of skimming activity,” hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they’d already visited. They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would “bounce” out to another site.”(3)
While the study comes across as a little creepy to me, by which I mean tracking people’s activity on websites and recording it. The study shows concrete evidence of people being unable to hold their attention on one thing long enough to obtain any information but whatever is shallow and right on the surface. Skimming shows either our inability or unwillingness to think deeper so we (as said by Carr) “bounce” from place to place, one paragraph to the next, one article to another, only grazing the information and never pulling any real value from it. Possibly from the sheer laziness that the internet has inflicted upon us by giving us everything we want, the second we want it without needing to do in-depth searches or work for it. On the very same topic of skimming articles Bell writes, “Since I have nonstop access to Internet, I can access anything. I need to at any given point. When getting assigned readings for homework, I have found myself skimming over the passages to get it done faster. Nothing makes me not able to retain all the information I was supposed to causing me to take more time and reread the assignment.”(Bell). I too can relate to this experience. Tons of time has been spent “reading” and skimming and rereading assigned articles, more time than I’d like to admit, time that could be used to do other things. Yet, I sit there looking over the same words for what feels like forever just trying to think deep enough to grasp a hint of information or meaning from the page. Shifting the focus to social media Buchanan writes,
“With the influx of social media this can be seen better than ever before. And the main transition we are seeing is people going from deep thinking to shallow thinking. Everywhere you look, there are gossip websites that portray themselves as news sites. And many people fail to see this and end up believing what these sites post.”(Buchanan).
“We tend to become “mere decoders of information.” our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largly disengaged.”(3).
Give background information on this quote
“All of which is a result of shallow thinking. The information that we consume on the daily needs to be processed quickly in order for us to comprehend the hundreds of videos. And post we scroll through on the daily. And with the fast consumption of Information people are also quick to comment, repost and share.”
“Interpreting the reading is one major step in reading as well. If you don’t understand the main point or even topic of the essay, did you even retain anything that the article was about”
Technology has integrated into our lives so much we have begun to love it. We treat our phones with care, making sure they are protected, updating our computers to the newest model so they run smoothly. This leads to the idea of technology and the internet being a parasitic relationship at times. And as weird and strange as it sounds, we all have a relationship with our technology. And I question on which side leaches and takes more from the other, or does it boil down to a toxic relationship on both sides. To analyze this idea, I want to bring in Kevin Kelley’s Technophilia, Franco Leehive’s essay, Technology: The World’s Greatest Resource, and Noah Kesler’s essay, into conversation. Through analysis of our relationship with technology I intend to dig deep into the trials and tribulations of this love. While there are pros to technology being deeply ingrained in our lives, does it require or deserve the relationship we have built with it? I say no, we have become too reliant on technology to the point where it dictates our lives. However, I am not saying that technology isn’t necessary in our day to day lives but I don’t believe that there is a need to covet it the way we do.
The debate about how technology and if it runs our lives is on going. And I want to talk about how not only have we become extremely distracted with the internet and technology but some have even begun to love and admire it. Author Kevin Kelley wrote, Technophilia, as almost a love letter to technology. He claims that technology only wants to become useless and beautiful and that their beauty will one day rival that of the natural world. *quote*.
Franco Leehive ENG 110 student agrees with Kelley on the basis that technology can be a good and beautiful thing, however he sees that technology also has the ability to destroy. “The world’s greatest tool to mankind is technology this tool can be used for immense greatness or it can be used to destroy the world” (Leehive). And to my point we have created such a relationship with technology that we have given it the power over us to destroy us one day. This idea is a scary one and not one to be taken lightly. *Kelley quote and analysis – linkingto Leehive*
Noah Kesler, ENG 110 student, brings in the idea that when technology is not near is we feel disconnected and compares the connection we have to our phone to similar to the one we share with family, “Some of us have the same connection to our phones that we do with our closest friends or maybe even family.” (Kesler). We have come to a point where when we are not in arms reach of our phone we miss it like a long distance boyfriend. And this can be dangerous, relaying so heavily on technology that we have allowed it to creep into our minds and give us a comforting feeling when it is around. *Kelley missing limb quote*
I don’t like the idea that technology has become to imbedded into our lives and minds that we struggle to go without it for even a day. And yet I struggle to see a world where a significant distance put between us and technology would be able to work. We rely so heavily on technology live our phone to aid in completing tasks that we struggle to preform well without them. They have become a crutch that we stand on and are refusing to heal from. I cannot pretend that I am better than other because it do not hold my phone and other technologies in a high regard because that would be false. I find myself coveting my technologies and when I come to the realization that I was I feel the need to take a step back. Some days I want to put a large barrier between me and my phone, even feel like I should leave it in my room, but then I realize that I need it for things like logging into my school account, keeping track of time, connecting with my friends for lunch. Took much of me relays on technology that doing away with it would be hurtful. So while I am not as awestruck and lost to technology as Kelley I still feel a sense of lose when it is not around or even heartbreak when my one technology is broken like my boyfriend had just broken up with me. And the thought that I can compare a breakup with a damaged computer is worrying and scary.
Myli Petrocci
Professor Jesse Miller
English 110
22 April 2025
Teens and Technology: Growing Up in a Connected World
Looking back, I believe our parents were right. I remember begging my parents for a phone in middle school, wanting to be just like my other friends. Their hesitation, similar to many parents around the world, was an instinct that we all should have paid closer attention to. Although, researchers have been paying attention to this, analyzing each move we make. Each of which we are getting closer to our own demise. Shelley Turkle, a clinical psychologist and professor at MIT, effectively illustrates the truth about modern technology in her article The Empathy Diaries. She is known for her research on how the internet has negatively affected human behavior, especially in youth. Her ideas follow a similar trend in what the youth is recently discovering, that screens have actually impacted us in an unfavorable way. Peyton Perkins, a first year student at the University of New England, reflects upon the deep integration of technology into daily life, portraying it as both a convenience and a dependency in her article Where Did We Go Wrong? Similarly, Kaia Anderson who is also a first year student at the University of New England, argues that cooperation across generations to address technology addiction is greatly needed in her article Helping the Addict: A Call To Action. Each author offers insight shaped by their current stage in life. Being that Turkle published her article in 2021, which is not too far away from our current year, it’s impactful to see how her prediction has become true. We are lost as a generation, needing guidance from our elders as Anderson attributes to, and most importantly need to reclaim our unique personalities by putting down our phones. The only way teenagers and adults alike can reclaim their identity in a meaningful way is to put down their phones.
The claim that social media has impacted us mentally due to overuse is absolutely correct, mostly because we not only can see it impacting others, but now ourselves more than ever. Turkle is sure to include her analysis of how young adults’ mental health has been impacted. She says, “When personal computers became online games, children experimented with identity by building avatars.” She then continues to say “Also constant was the anxiety of adults around children and machines…They watched, unhappy, as children became lost in games and forgot about the people around them, preferring, at long stretches, the world’s in the machine.” (Turkle 345,346 **how do i format this) In other words, the adult’s anxiety of children becoming lost in their new personalities online is unfortunate for both parties. There are misunderstandings and lack of knowledge all around. The parents’ judgment was partially correct, but coming from a place of fear, which led to children being even more indifferent to their opinions. Parents were right to be concerned about children becoming consumed by games, a growing and troubling trend, because many of those children now struggle to find purpose or direction without them. Perkins continues this idea and provides insight from a college student’s perspective. She conveys, “We are in a constant state of ‘where is my phone?’ Feeling uncomfortable in the elevator; check your phone. Nervous before an interview; check your phone. We want to access technology not necessarily because it is helpful, but because we have made it an extension of who we are” (Perkins page #?). In other words, growing up surrounded by screens has affected us so deeply that functioning without them feels nearly impossible. It defines us, offers us comfort, and ultimately becomes a part of our identity. While some may not see it as a problem, this is a growing issue. Especially for those aiming to advance their careers, where the impact of screens on a person’s professional development becomes increasingly apparent. Being unable to portray our unique selves without social media will not further us in our career or social goals. We need to reclaim our personalities.
As students, we can tell in the classrooms who the outliers are. The people who watch TikTok or play games on their phone instead of paying attention to the lecture, or those who lack communication skills during group projects really stand out. The amount of students who haven’t learned viable skills in middle and high school, which are needed for college and our career goals, is growing exponentially. This is due to technology being let into classrooms. Anderson, a student, argues “The presence of technology has had negative effects on behavior, especially when it comes to attention span and engaging with others” (Anderson, page #). Attention span is the real kicker. Short videos, such as TikTok or Instagram, makes sitting through lectures and reading slides much more difficult for this generation. Anderson illustrates this perfectly in her article. It’s very interesting to see the impacts Anderson describes, which are growing exactly how another author, Turkle, described they would be. In Turkle’s writing she includes a distraught teacher who describes the new school setting, “It is a struggle to get children to talk to each other in class, to directly address each other. It is a struggle to get them to meet with faculty…These students seem to understand each other less” (Turkle 344). In a similar way of describing this predicament, students’ lack of social skills only worsens as they continue to not practice it in school. Keep in mind this was from 2008. Personally I believe that it’s the teachers job to push their students to talk and interact. If there are issues, fix them head on with the individual students. I think that teachers get nervous to put students in awkward situations, especially at a young age, but that’s exactly what they need. Now I know many try over and over, and their frustration only grows with the introduction of phones as a distraction which worsens the situation, but it is still their job to try and care.
Katie McGuire
Professor Miller
English Composition 110
22 April 2025
In The Empathy Diaries, Sherry Turkle shares her own experience from researching trying to make sense of the emotional and social cost of how much we rely on technology for our daily life and communication. Her research challenges us readers to think about the ways technology has affected us. She shows us the ways of how it is making us unable to have real human connection and think for ourselves. This topic also shows throughout first year students Faith Santiago’s and Tyler’s Pelletier cases. They both discuss the impact modern technology has had on their behavior, their attitudes, and how they connect with other human beings. Faith brings up technology’s two-way street in which technology makes information accessible to us, but in doing so it harms our intellectual engagement at the same time. Whereas Tyler explains how constantly using technology has made it harder to deal with real life relationships and experiences. Through Turkle, Faith and Tyler we see a constant worry about losing ourselves through technology and the features that keep advancing. They all show that technology is giving us more connectivity but quietly damaging the very human connection that it is supposed to be growing as we mature. Not only is our reliance on technology changing what we do, it’s changing who we are, and not necessarily for the better.
Turkle, Faith, and Tyler all discuss the fact that possibly one of the greatest impacts of technology is how it has progressively harmed our capacity to think by ourselves and in detail. Turkle writes in The Empathy Diaries about how the research she did uncovered signs like us students who were once able to concentrate for hours, are now constantly distracted and emotionally unavailable. This is through something she says happens as a result from our excessive use of screens. She states, “We find ways of getting around talk. We camouflage ourselves from one another even while we are continually linked to one another” (Turkle). Turkle is not just discussing our tendency to text more than speak. She is talking about our loss in human connection and the way we interact with others. Faith also reflects this problem when she states, “These apps have conditioned me into preferring the way that they release information, because the more I rely on them for entertainment or as a time filler, the more they profit.” Both Turkle and Faith speak of the cycle we are experiencing. The more easily content can be accessed with less effort, the less we think critically or reflectively. Turkle calls it an empathy crisis, and Faith calls it an intellectual independence breakdown. Devices meant for ourselves are now conditioning us to need speed and ease instead of reflection and depth. As technology reduces our patience for effort, we begin to lose something essential. It is harming our ability to learn, connect, and belong in the world.
A common theme through the three pieces is how technology makes things more accessible, taking away authenticity in our work and interactions too. Tyler’s essay is stating this point of how he describes how AI writing programs and autocorrect has harmed his level of confidence in his own skills: “This tool has been a virus of the human brain, eliminating the need to think for themselves.” His point regarding his mother utilizing AI to produce report cards for students is showing how even the most people-oriented profession can lose touch with reality by using the work of feeling and thinking to machines. Turkle would likely agree. She warns that “what computers deliver is not intimacy but the illusion of intimacy” (Turkle). Each time, one feels that something valuable is being lost. She says, “Technology that is of no intellectual interest to its consumers tends to have a purpose of making people dependent upon it in return for maximum return.” We are losing our significance which is much greater than losing our ability. The moment technology comes in to do something with our thinking or feeling, the more efficient, but less human, we will be.
Though Turkle discusses in detail the emotional loneliness brought about by technology, Tyler offers an intimate approach through his narrative of how behavior on the Internet has affected his social anxiety. He states, “In real, non-technological interaction, it’s very difficult to be vulnerable because there’s so much uncertainty.” His discomfort with situations, like delivering a speech or attending a party alone, is typical of a trend among our generation that Turkle also observes among her students. They have a preference for the edited and controlled world of online life. Turkle informs us, “We use technology to keep one another at distances we can control: not too close, not too far, just right” (Turkle).