The Pbs Frontline Interview, Digital Demands, By Sherry...

Two people walk down the street side by side, each looking down into his hands attentively. Both occasionally sneak glances upwards, so as not to run into anyone. They walk in silence until it is time for them to go their separate ways; they then mutter hasty goodbyes, and turn to face their pixelated companions once more. A seemingly morbid depiction, perhaps, but one that is increasingly more representative of our modern reality. In the PBS Frontline interview Digital Demands, Sherry Turkle, MIT professor and researcher, examines this new trend. Her sage advice to youth: tread carefully on the Data Highway, for its overages are far costlier than estimated. Turkle s thesis: a lack of precise deliberation in the use of technology†¦show more content†¦Erikson s theories were formulated, in part, on the back of his own adolescent experiences; growing up in fascist Germany as the child of a German father and Jewish mother, he agonized over his own cultural label in the face o f the Third Reich. At the age of 37, he voiced his self-affirmation by renaming himself Erik Homburger Erikson. Literally, he redefined himself as his son; metaphorically, he redesigned himself as the culmination of the experiences of the first four decades of his life. Torn between his own unsteady conscience and the strident, crippling strains of Nazi propaganda, Erikson struggled to identify with his own notion of himself. This same dichotomy - the notion of a struggle between the inner self that one conceives, and the self-thrust upon us by the world - is the very fight that Turkle argues is necessary for the emergence of a purposeful, mature self. Today s adolescents, she says, bombarded by the beeps, hums, and whirs of technology, have become co-dependent with the piece of metal of their choosing, unable to complete even the most basic human functions of prioritization, organization, and independent thought. Instead of enabling, technology effectively becomes a crutch -- an un witting maneuver to postpone, conceal, and disingenuously morph. The price of quick-and-easy, Turkle contends, has been a debilitating mental servitude. Creating technology is in the hands of the people, and