Sherry Turkle: We have lost our capacity of being alone

Digital culture allows us to be continually connected. But, have we lost our capacity to communicate face-to-face due to our intense phone use?

Although digital tools provide us new ways to relate and be in touch with people all over the world, we must not loose sight of what social media is and its consequences when using them excessively: the replacement of human communication. The fact that an emoji substitutes our emotional state is not good, it is irrational to express such complex feelings with a simple illustration. 

It's been a natural process. As Sherry states, we didn't organize communication to change, it is the promotion of the use of phones in the laboral ambit, due to economic motives, save of time and a more efficient management of information has extended to our daily lives.

We carry our phones literally all day, they are design to capture our attention and consume their content. That content distracts us, it overwhelms us with data which leads us to two consequences: we do not know how to be alone, comfortable with our loneliness; The second one is more subtle because of the high volume of info, it lessens its impact. We have all seen the picture of a girl running from a bomb  but we remember it vaguely.

Now, let's talk about the self online and on reality. There needs to be consciousness regarding the impact of the self-presentation or the "fake me" among teenagers as they are held on an unbearable position of tension between reality and what social pressure forces them to project, same thing with adults. 

We. need. consciousness. Now more than ever.