I came across this video of a TED talk by Sherry Turkle on Richard Beck's blog this morning. As I listened to it a couple of times at work, I realized how addicted I am to the illusion of relationship and community that social media can foster.
Some quotes from the talk:
"People text or do email during corporate board meetings. They text and shop and go on Facebook during classes, during presentations, actually during all meetings. People talk to me about the important new skill of making eye contact while you're texting. People explain to me that it's hard, but that it can be done. Parents text and do email at breakfast and at dinner while their children complain about not having their parents' full attention. But then these same children deny each other their full attention...And we even text at funerals. I study this. We remove ourselves from our grief or from our revery and we go into our phones. Why does this matter? It matters to me because I think we're setting ourselves up for trouble -- trouble certainly in how we relate to each other, but also trouble in how we relate to ourselves and our capacity for self-reflection. We're getting used to a new way of being alone together."
