analytical summary recreating conversation

Jacob wood
Professor H.
AWR 101
25 September 2018
The Power of Conversation
In Recreating Conversation (2016), author Sherry Turkle takes a different viewpoint on technology and talks about the significant effect it has on all people; young and old in their everyday life. In this book, Turkle is targeting on something that has been in front of people for so long yet few have been able to see. She takes her main point of view and branches out to a lot of different directions before coming back to one main focus. Conversation. After lots of researches and interviews, she can infer that people are losing the ability to have face-to-face conversations which ultimately revamps everything about how humans interact with each other. In Recreating Conversation, the author argues that technology is changing everyone’s life and recommends positive adaptations since it is not entirely bad.
After conducting her research, she analyzes the vital impact cell phones have on a day-to-day life. Technology and phone usage have a significant upshot to all people nowadays, and it cannot be avoided, but Turkle focuses on the substantial effect it has on kids nowadays. “You know kids are mean. And it’s because they’re trying it out. When they write “you’re fat,” they just go “That was fun. I like that.”” (Turkle 59). The book emphasizes the difference between being rude to someone in person and being rude to someone through a screen. Turkle points out that when kids are rude to others in person, it is different because, “they see the kid’s face scrunch up and they go, “Ooh, that doesn’t feel good to make a person do that.

”” (Turkle 59). When pointing this out, she is correct. If kids do not see the reaction of someone who is upset because of their actions, it will be difficult for them, and they will have no boundaries. Turkle identifies that when kids become attached to technology and accustomed to it being involved in their everyday lives, they will never learn to be alone.
Being alone is something that Turkle pivots a significant portion of the book around. She writes that “It is not surprising that privacy allows for greater creativity. When we let our focus shift away from the people and things around us we are better able to think critically about our thoughts, a process that psychologists call meta-cognition.” (Turkle 67). Here, she challenges readers to think of the last time when they were alone with their thoughts. The common answer is most likely never. The audience she is targeting is younger people. Technology follows a majority of people everywhere. Most say they are alone when they go on a walk or relax by themselves, but in fact, they are not. Most people cannot be alone now, or they will suffer from disconnection anxiety. Disconnection anxiety is discomfort that an internet user feels when he or she is unable to access it. Here, the author concludes that “Now that connection is always on offer people don’t know what to do with alone time, even time they asked for” (Turkle 68). With that being said, phones can often disconnect us from each other, even a phone that is turned off.
Throughout the book, Turkle reiterates how much impact technology has on the conversation. She talks about how it makes conversations less meaningful now. For example, she notes that “One of Eleanor’s friends explains that if a conversation at dinner turns serious and someone looks at a phone, it is her signal to “lighten things up”” (Turkle 20). Just the idea of a phone makes things a little more casual. Here, also, she is correct when she talks about conversations being ruined by technology. Turkle sparks the idea that if people become so accustomed to communicating with each other through cell phones, nobody will have the simple trait of looking someone in the eyes and talking to them. Turkle is a spot on when claiming that conversation is less meaningful when a phone is out.
Technology is changing everything about life which means everyone must learn to adapt to this new tech-heavy environment that everyone is living in. Sherry Turkle discusses the technology’s influence the way people communicate with each other. At one point in the book she expresses her viewpoint by saying, “So, my argument is not anti-technology. It’s pro-conversation” (Turkle 25). She emphasizes that technology is not necessarily a bad thing. Turkle makes a massive push for alone time, and face-to-face interacting which are two primary keys to focusing on what is important. She emphasizes how important it is to talk, and think more without being so dependent on technology. Turkle could not be more correct in making these claims. Turkle has made the center of attention mainly around communication. She is stressing that we need to find the middle ground with technology and life and she couldn’t be more correct.
In brief, Turkle in her book Reclaiming Conversations warns that technology has a negative influence on people’s lives. She uses researches and interviews to support her arguments. One way she points out technology affects on how a reaction to a negative remark on someone that is read on display differs from one picked on a face-to-face incidence. The former is always considered to ignite a fun moment. She, however, upholds that technology is a good thing to the extent that it makes face-to-face discussions at dinner meaningful. For this reason, she recommends adaptations to it in a way it does not wreck our lives.

Work Cited
Turkle, Sherry. Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. New York, N.Y: Penguin Books, 2016. Print.