I’m the one who doesn’t want to be interrupted. He says they’re “too busy on their e-mail.” But then he pauses and corrects himself. He says that he doesn’t want to interrupt them. He doesn’t stop by to talk he doesn’t call. To some this seems like a good idea, but we can end up hiding from one another, even as we are constantly connected to one another.Ī businessman laments that he no longer has colleagues at work. Our colleagues want to go to that board meeting but pay attention only to what interests them.

We have gotten used to the idea of being in a tribe of one, loyal to our own party. We want to move in and out of where we are because the thing we value most is control over where we focus our attention. We’ve become accustomed to a new way of being “alone together.” Technology-enabled, we are able to be with one another, and also elsewhere, connected to wherever we want to be. I’ve learned that the little devices most of us carry around are so powerful that they change not only what we do, but also who we are. Over the past 15 years, I’ve studied technologies of mobile connection and talked to hundreds of people of all ages and circumstances about their plugged-in lives. My students tell me about an important new skill: it involves maintaining eye contact with someone while you text someone else it’s hard, but it can be done. We text (and shop and go on Facebook) during classes and when we’re on dates. At work executives text during board meetings. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.Īt home, families sit together, texting and reading e-mail.

WE live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating.

Sherry turkle's alone together