Technology Takeove

Turkle, Sherry. “Can You Hear Me Now?.” Forbes Magazine. Richard Karlgaard, 7 May 2007. Web. 25 April 2010. <http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2007/0507/176.html>

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The more connected we are through technology, the more disconnected we are as humans. Dr. Sherry Turkle, Professor at MIT, lists five of her deepest concerns about the effects of technology on humanity. As a result of computer programs like "Second Life", people can choose to live virtual lives in an alternate reality, resulting in an altered and unreal sense of self. Secondly, because they have such easy access to methods of communication, people are losing the ability to be patient and take their time. As one Blackberry user put it,"I don't have enough time alone with my mind." Thirdly, because teenagers always have a friend or a parent just a text or cell phone call away, they never have to cope with problems or emotions on their own, think them through, and deal with them independently. According to Turkle, adolescence should be a time of self-reflection that many of today's youth are not experiencing. Fourthly, with the existence of so many social networks, many people do not regard privacy as something to be valued. People do not seem to care who knows the details of their daily lives.Turkle is concerned that this mindset could lead to the justification of the invasion of privacy. Finally, Turkle is concerned about what she calls "split attention." Traditionally, most communication was done face-to-face or with a real person over the phone. Today, people talk to machines, leaving messages, buying tickets, purchasing clothing, ordering food, paying bills, etc. In Japan, robots are used extensively as companions for the elderly. One woman said she preferred the robot to a real dog because it won't "do dangerous things, betray you ...or die." People could begin to feel more comfortable dealing with machines than with other humans.

As one considers whether social robots should be used in therapy, it is wise to look at the bigger picture and take into account the concerns that Turkle, a professor of social sciences and technology at MIT, expresses in her article about the impact of social technology in general. The availability of so much technology in our culture may be robbing us of some of the qualities that enrich our lives as humans, such as patience, self-reflection, contemplation, vulnerability, and human attachments. Because there are obvious immediate benefits to the use of social robots in a therapeutic setting, it might be easy to lose sight of what those benefits might be costing the patient and society as a whole. Technological advances happen very quickly as one can see from the telephone industry. The same thing will probably happen in the field of robotics. As these advances occur, it will be important for people to be aware of the ethical and moral issues that will arise as a result and to make responsible decisions. In her article for Forbes, "Can You Hear Me Now?", Turkle makes a good point in a comment regarding the use of robots as companions for the elderly, "Might such robotic arrangements even benefit the elderly and their children in the short run in a feel-good sense but be bad for us in our lives as moral beings? The answer does not depend on what computers can do today or what they are likely to be able to do in the future. It hangs on the question of what we will be like, what kind of people we are becoming as we develop very intimate relationships with our machines."