Sherry Turkle is a professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She has written several books, given multiple TED talks, and even been on the cover of Wired magazine (pictured below). Through her research on communication and communication theory, Turkle concluded that an over-reliance on digital communication could (and does) result in feelings of real-world isolation, loneliness, emotional disconnection, and anxiety.
When I first listened to Turkle's TED talk (linked below), I was immediately on the defensive. I thought, "great. Here's another scholar coming to tell us that phones are bad." I wasn't a fan of her presentation style at all; but I do think that some of her ideas have merit.
The feeling of 'being together while alone' is something we all experienced first hand throughout the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. I think that this pandemic has given a lot of people time to think and reasons to want to see people as opposed to a text or video call. The simple fact of the matter is that humans need connection- and we're not getting that from technology right now.
There are some interesting AI projects floating around right now; but will they eventually replace real human connection? It's impossible to say. All I know for sure is that we, as a species, need connection- however it is provided. As Sherry Turkle says, "this is a new nonnegotiable: to feel safe, you have to be connected."
https://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_connected_but_alone?language=en
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