Alone Together
By: Rebecca Eickhoff
In Sherry Turkle’s article “The Flight from Conversation,” She states, “If we are unable to be alone, we are more likely to be lonely.” I agree completely with her statement because I, myself see this on a daily basis with family. I think it’s a very powerful and eye opening statement.
What I read in this article was that people would rather be alone with their devices than be alone with themselves or others. After reading this article, I decided to observe my family for the day and see how much technology has consumed our lives. I woke the next morning to find myself going right to my phone, not to check the time, but to see if anyone text me or called me through the night. I then proceed to check social media and see what I may have missed. At this point I’ve probably wasted 10 minutes of my morning on checking things that really didn’t matter, instead of getting things prepared for the day. I see the same pattern for my kids. Once they’re awaken, its right to their tablets to see if anyone may have attacked them on a game they were playing the night before. It’s a constant battle of me repeatedly telling them to put their tablets down and get dressed. There’s rarely a “good morning, how did you sleep?” Just faces down, buried in their devices. I see it with my husband and I as well. I can be in a room on the other side of the house, instead of coming in the room to ask me something or just to tell me about his day, he will text me what’s on his mind. When I ask him why he didn’t just come in and tell me face to face, he said he didn’t want to bother me.
In conclusion, “If we are unable to be alone, we are more likely to be lonely” statement, tells us as a family we need to start laying down ground rules on when and where we can be on our devices. We need to start having “family alone time” together!