Smith |1
Alexis Smith
03/03/15
ENG 1002
Professor Skutar
Connected, But Alone? A Speech by Sherry Turkle
Sherry Turkle, a phycologist and author gives a compelling argumentative speech titled
Connected, But Alone? about the effect of technology on the ability of people to connect with
one another, in order to influence the way people view technology. There are many different
things that impacted the way Turkle constructed and presented the speech including her identity
as the author, the purpose of the speech, the intended audience, pathos and the genre.
The speaker, Sherry Turkle would be considered an expert on the subject at hand. As a
phycologist she studies the effects of technology in people's lives. It's her job to investigate the
popular belief that technology has benefited society, and analyze the advantages and
disadvantages of using technology as a way to experience relationships and connections with
other people. She briefly mentions that she gave a speech in 1996 about the benefits of
technology and how excited she was for the technological advances to come. Turkle's profession
influences her speech by giving her credibility and a very trustworthy tone to those who are on
the receiving end. The effect of Turkle's profession on the credibility of her speech is important
because it increases the chance that the audience will be influenced by her argument. The
Smith |2
audience is much more likely to trust an expert who has studied the subject firsthand than a
random individual who is simply presenting an opinion. As an expert in the field, she is able to
share her own personal experiences to solidify her argument. She provides a very rounded view
of the issue at hand, because in her line of work she has seen the way that technology has
benefited society and she has also seen how it has stripped people of the ability to engage in real
relationships. All of these things work together to form a trustworthy and credible argument that
the audience will respect and absorb.
The purpose of the speech is to convince the audience that the more people use
technology as a relief from their loneliness and a way to connect to the world, the less connected
and the lonelier they become. She isn't trying to condemn technology, she is simply trying to
persuade people to rethink the way they use technology. Turkle uses specific examples of
situations in which most people believe that they are using technology to improve their lives and
to create deeper relationships and stronger connections, when actually they are doing the exact
opposite. One of the examples she uses is how people use their phones to text, email, or surf
social media sites during business meetings, classes, dates and in many other situations that in
previous years would have been deemed completely inappropriate. Although people think they
are privileged and better connected to the people around them because they are able to multitask
by texting in class or scrolling through Facebook while they are in a meeting, the connections
and relationships in their lives are actually suffering as a result. According to Turkle, when a
person is constantly dividing themselves between technology and the things going on around
them, they are not able to fully participate in and experience the events taking place in their lives.
People invest themselves in school, in work and in relationships but only in the parts that interest
them. As soon as class gets boring or as soon as a relationship gets difficult they turn their
Smith |3
attention elsewhere. People even go so far as to text at funerals. They use their technology as a
way to remove themselves from the grief. People may think that this makes dealing with their
pain easier, however later on in life they will likely realize they never really dealt with the pain at
all. Technology is only a distraction from everyday problems, not a solution.
Another example Turkle uses in order to convince the audience that technology is
harmful to relationships, is what she calls the Goldilocks Effect, which is when people have a
“not to close, not too far, just right” mentality about relationships. People text, post on Facebook
or twitter, but they fail to make deep connections or have real conversations. People become
obsessed with editing themselves through text and social media and the more they do it the
harder it becomes for them to have real and intimate relationships in which they share their true
selves with another person. According to Turkle, people develop an “I share, therefore I am”
mentality. People develop their identity through social media, through the Instagram picture that
they edited to perfection or the Facebook status that they carefully thought out. Without social
media many people don't even know who they are anymore.
Turkle uses these examples to communicate her argument because people can relate to
the situations presented. It gives people a chance to reflect and recognize how technology might
have negatively affected their own lives and relationships. These examples perfectly outline
everyday situations in which technology negatively effects the lives of everyday people.
Audience members can think about how they got a bad grade in calculus because they were on
their phone the entire class period, how earlier they wasted two hours trying to take a new profile
picture for Facebook, or how their past relationships have suffered because of a lack in
communication. Turkle is trying to shed light on a very personal problem, and as a result
personal reflection is really the only thing that will bring about change.
Smith |4
The audience for the speech is the generation that has grown up using technology. Most
people born before the time of cell phones, texting and social media already recognize the social
problems that have accompanied technological advances. Elderly people complain about how
young people have no manners and are not able to maintain a conversation. Primarily 80's and
90's babies and their children as well would be the main audience for this speech. The people
who suffered through dial up internet and giant cell phones with antennas and who have done
their best to evolve with technology and have allowed it to become a bigger and bigger part of
their lives as the years passed. These people also allowed technology to become a huge part of
their children's lives, some have practically raised their children with technology. Some children
get cell phones as young as 7 years old and have iPads and tablets instead of Barbies and Hot
Wheels. These are the people who need to understand the dangers of allowing technology to
replace much needed connections and relationships.
Turkle shapes her stratagy to fit her audience by providing relatable examples of
situations that these people encounter on a daily basis in order to help them understand how
technology affects their own personal lives. She makes an attempt to relate to the parents who
rely heavily on technology in the opening line of her speech, “Just a moment ago my daughter
texted me for good luck. Her text said, “Mom, you will rock”. I love this. Getting that text was
like a hug” (Turkle). In this simple remark Turkle shares one of the positive aspects of
technology, the ability to connect with the people you love when you are unable to connect with
them in person. Many parents work full time and many children have various extracurricular
activities that occupy their time and as a result many families have become reliant on technology
in order to stay connected with one another. Divorce has also become very common and many
parents who no longer live with their children are leaning on technology to maintain those
Smith |5
relationships. In this comment Turkle herself admits to using technology to stay connected with
her daughter while she is away. By sharing this with the audience she is revealing to them that
she lives a life very similar to theirs and that she can relate to their need to stay connected with
their children through technology. She is also making it clear that technology can be beneficial
when used correctly. This relatable example helps to convince the audience by showing that
Turkle is not only an expert in the field but also someone who shares the same wants, desires and
values as they do, and that she has an understanding of what they are experiencing in their lives.
One element that shaped the speech was Pathos, or the use of emotional appeal, which
Turkle uses to convince the audience. Turkle tells a heart wrenching story of an elderly lady in an
assisted living facility who had lost a child. Turkle talks about how there are sociable robots who
are created to be companions. They are designed to make people feel as if they are understood.
According to Turkle the robot put on a pretty good show, it looked up at the elderly woman, and
seemed to be following the conversation. But that woman was pouring out her life, and trying to
makes sense of such intense and complicated feelings while talking to a machine that had no
feelings. Turkle said, “People experience pretend empathy as though it were the real thing.
During that moment when that woman was experiencing that pretend empathy I was thinking,
“That robot can't empathize. It doesn't face death. It doesn't know life”. And as that woman took
comfort in her robot companion, I didn't find it amazing; I found it one of the most wrenching,
complicated moments in my 15 years of years of work” (Turkle).
This story was clearly meant to have an emotional effect on the audience. Everyone has
known loss of some kind, and everyone has a deep desire to be understood. Therefore a story like
that would cause the audience to reflect on these feelings and recognize that fake empathy, fake
connections and fake relationships don't meet human needs. Turkle tells another pathos infused
Smith |6
story, about a business man who feels that he no longer has colleagues at his place of work. He
claims that all of his coworkers are far too busy checking their email, and he doesn't want to
interrupt them. He never stops buy to talk to them and he never calls them. Then the story takes a
turn, “But then he stops himself and he says, “You know, I'm not telling you the truth. I'm the one
who doesn't want to be interrupted. I think I should want to, but actually I'd rather just do things
on my blackberry”. This story has an emotional effect on the audience, and causes them to pity
the poor man isolated and alone in a world of technology. However it also causes them to realize
that this poor man has inflicted this loneliness upon himself, and that he alone has the power to
change his situation. The audience can reflect on their own lives and realize that although it may
seem that the world is shutting them out, they just might be the ones shutting the world out.
The genre of the speech is persuasive or argumentative. In a persuasive speech the
author's goal is to convince audience that the opinion presented is correct. As I mentioned earlier,
the purpose of Turkle's speech is to convince the audience that technology can have a negative
effect on people's lives. A persuasive speech should state a thesis or argument, it should then
provide background information about the subject, provide solid reasons that support the
argument, and it should acknowledge counter arguments. Turkle identifies her argument early on
in her speech, “Why does this matter? It matters to me because I think we're setting ourselves up
for trouble – trouble certainly in how we relate to each other, but also trouble in how we relate to
ourselves and our capacity for self-reflection” ( Turkle). This thesis statement clearly expresses
what her argument is and why it matters to her. Then she gives a sort of summery of behaviors
that have resulted from people using technology as a substitute for real relationships and
connections, “So just to take some quick examples: People text or do email during corporate
board meetings. They text and shop and go on Facebook during classes, during presentations,
Smith |7
actually during all meetings. People talk to me about the important new skill of making eye
contact while you're texting. People explain to me that it's hard, but that it can be done. Parents
text and do email at breakfast and at dinner while their children complain about not having their
parents' full attention. But then these same children deny each other their full attention” (Turkle).
This background information clearly outlines situations in which technology is used negatively
so that the audience has an understanding of the issue at hand.
Turkle provides many solid reasons to support her argument, most of which are products
of her own personal experiences, for example, “Texting, email, posting, all of these things let us
present the self as we want to be. We get to edit and that means we get to delete, and that means
we get to retouch, the face, the voice, the flesh, the body—not too little, not too much, just right.
Human relationships are rich and they're messy and they're demanding. And we clean them up
with technology. And when we do, one of the things that can happen is that we sacrifice
conversation for mere connection. We short-change ourselves. And over time we seem to forget
this, or we seem to stop caring” (Turkle). These examples support Turkle’s argument by
identifying specific ways that technology negatively influences people’s lives. They also allow
the audience to reflect on their own personal experiences and identify these situations in their
own lives. Turkle acknowledges the counter argument that technology is beneficial to society by
suggesting that it's not technology itself that is negative, it's the way we use it, “We're smitten
with technology. And we're afraid, like young lovers, that too much talking might spoil the
romance. But it's time to talk. We grew up with digital technology and so we see it as all grown
up .But it's not, its early days. There’s plenty of time for us to reconsider how we use it, how we
build it. I'm not suggesting that we turn away from our devices, just that we develop a more selfaware relationship with them, with each other and with ourselves” (Turkle). With this statement
Smith |8
Turkle addresses the counter argument appropriately by acknowledging that technology has its
benefits and by clearly expressing that it is only beneficial when used correctly.
In conclusion, Turkle's speech, Connected, But Alone? Is a persuasive speech that serves
the purpose of convincing the audience that technology is replacing real relationships and
connections with a false sense of community and connection through texting and social media.
Many different things impacted the way that the speech was constructed and the way it was
delivered. The identity of the author had a significant impact because Sherry Turkle's profession
gives her credibility as a speaker. The audience had an impact because Turkle shaped her speech
to relate to people who have grown up using technology and who are raising their children with
technology. The purpose of the speech impacted the way it was delivered and constructed.
Turkle used specific and relatable examples to achieve the goal of the speech. She also used
pathos to construct her argument by telling stories that evoke an emotion response and would
cause the audience to reflect. The genre played a significant role in the structure and delivery of
the speech. The speech contained an argumentative thesis statement, background information on
the issue at hand, specific examples supporting the argument, and the acknowledgement of a
counter argument. These many different influences come together to create a strong argument
and an effectively delivered speech.
Smith |9
Works Cited
Turkle, Sherry. "Connected, But Alone?" Oral Presentation.TedTalks.com. Web. 2 Feb. 2015.