The Empathy Diaries By Sherry Turkle

“We didn’t have a choice to know any life without iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like actual people,” (Paragraph 2). The upcoming growing generation Mrs. Twenge discovers that they are growing up with a smartphone within arm’s reach. She talks to this little girl she calls Athena and asks her if she goes to the mall with her friends alone. Athena tells her no, that when she goes to the mall with her friends its always with her mom and brothers, but they stay a little behind. She says that she had to check in every 30 minutes with her mom and let her know what they are doing. As Mrs. Twenge is talking to Athena she starts to find out how teens today communicate. She finds out that snapchat is one way they communicate and according to Athena it’s also another great way to blackmail someone to. Jean M. Twenge paints a frightening picture of how smartphones are destroying the upcoming generation.

Technology diminishes our empathy. In the last paragraph of, “Attached to Technology and Paying a Price,” the author says, “We did not go out to dinner, we just sat there on our devices.” Technology demands your time. Almost always the time that is given up is family time.

Everybody lives their lives differently. In the novel Every Day by David Levithan the main character, who goes by A, takes spending a day in somebody else’s shoes literally. Every day, A is someone else. He sees almost every situation people are put into including how they react to it. All of the things A sees impacts him as a person. A tries to help anyone he encounters for the better. People in general learn from what they experience or see and knowing what others around you go through can make you feel sympathy for them. The way different people act to different things is normally about what they have been through. A having seen what people have been though, tries to help the people he becomes, even if it is only for a day. If we could

THESIS: In today’s world, the phone often provides a primary source of access to both social support and necessary data for school and extracurricular activities,” Dodgen-Magee says. “To simply yank it away would be like taking away the support of a bridge with nothing in its place.”

“In 2015 study by the Pew Research Center, 89 percent of cellphone owners said they had used their phones during the last social gathering they attended” (Turkle). As technology keeps growing and growing we find that it has an effect on many things. Nicholas Carr and Sherry Turkle’s articles both relate to how Google is effect many people today. However, Carr’s article focuses more on how it is affected our ability to concentrate and contemplate, while Turkle’s article shows how we have lost the ability to connect with others.

Many people are not mindful of how technology is disconnecting us from one another. When people pull out smartphones during a conversation or social gathering they will cause others to feel disconnected. These phones allow people to withdraw from what is happing now and move another situation reducing the quality of the conversation that is within our reach. In the essay "Stop Googling. Let's Talk" by Sherry Turkle; she believes that we are becoming a culture of short chats versus growing our culture of thinkers that are open to sharing in constructive and meaningful conversations with one another.

In the second chapter of her book, “The Empathy Diaries” Sherry Turkle argues that people are fleeing or running from normal conversation. She also states that even though we want to be with each other, we also want to be able to disconnect with reality and connect somewhere else. She claims “What we value most is control over where we put our attention” (19). We want to be close but not that far away, but just right. The writer acknowledges that our phones give us a sense of “companionship” without having to deal with the demands of an actual relationship. With that being said, even our conversations are being impacted by our phones. The writer even states that, “even the mere presence of a phone on a table (even a phone turned off) changes

In Sherry Turkle’s “Stop Googling. Let’s Talk”, Turkle claims that “technology is implicated in the assault on empathy”(page 4, paragraph 3) . Through online conversations we are unable to make eye contact, hear and see the other person 's tone and body language. Because we are unable to see these things we are unable to comfort one another. Sherry Turkle further proves her claim that technology may be the reason for the decrease in empathy by performing a study. In this study Turkle, observes the behavior of teens at a “device-free” summer camp and after five (5) days, the teens were able to read facial expressions and were also able to identify the emotions of actors on a video-tape unlike their counterparts , whose devices were not taken away. These teens were able to tell how their fellow peers were feeling based on their tone and body languages. Moreover they were able to hold conversations in

As day progresses so as technology. In the modern society high technology devices have become indispensable to human. Electronic machines have gradually been starting to replace human work. At a factory work place, restaurant kitchen, and household laundry rooms, the improvement of technology can be seen anywhere. Mobile phone, which has only become prevalent in a few decades, can be found in anyone’s jeans pocket. However, is this situation an evolution to a new era or an over-reliance on technology. Sherry Turkle, the author of “The Empathy Diaries” expresses her concern on modern generation overusing electronic devices. She points out her main argument that the situation has deteriorated to the extend where children are losing their empathy and ability to social. Turkle, promoting the importance of conversation, not only criticize young generations for being overly obsess with electronic devices, but also oppose the ones who understand the the significance of conversation for not passing down the knowledge. It is clear that in Turkle’s perspective the improvement of technology has brought up issues that do not exist ever before. Despite that the benefit form electronic devices are inevitable the problems it brings about can never be look down. On the condition that people do not have enough self-control to overcome with the tempt form high technology devices can not only bring human short term benefits but lifetime long harm with its overly thoughtful benefits.

Over the past 30 years, people have demonstrated a declining empathetic behaviour. Sara H. Konrath of the University of Michigan, theorizes that empathetic decline is linked to social isolation. The theory resonates with me as I can understand the isolating effects of class segregation, technology and far-away communities and how this isolation can lead to declining empathy. A common form of social isolation is class segregation. This separation between the wealthy and the less privileged can lead to a lack of empathy in both groups. Because of the differences of their circumstances, neither group has a common point of reference. Without any commonality, empathy cannot be cultivated. Without a commonality, empathy cannot be achieved. Similarly, the social isolation which technology can pose can also lead to a lack of empathy .

Sherry Turkle was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1948. She is a professor of Social Studies and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has written many works, such as Alone Together, and this article, The Flight from Conversation, was published in the New York Times in April of 2012. The claim she makes in the article is that communication technology is causing society to lose its ability to have a meaningful conversation. She presents several strong rhetorical strategies, and some weak ones, through logos, ethos, and pathos.

Professor Paul Bloom states he is against empathy. He believes it is wrongfully used in our society and should not be used in certain situations. He still thinks it is important sometimes, but should not be primarily used as a result of anger, depression or retaliation. He believes compassion is the solution to empathy. In the long run, Bloom states that empathy will fail or burnout in a person. Hannah the extremely empathic person will eventually burnout according to Bloom. The use of empathy everyday as a core moral code will eventually be overwhelming and burned out and used up. The person will change direction and use empathy less in their lifetime. This essay will explore Paul Bloms opinion of empathy in his article, “Against

Over the past few years, technology has become a significant part of people’s every day lives. It helps people connect with those far away, but in the process, disconnects themselves from others close with them. Technology has helped improve the lives of many people through transportation and more, but overall has torn us apart. The constant usage of technology has people’s eyes glued to a small screen; they often forget to communicate with those around them.

Empathy is often described as having consideration of someone else feelings. Webster defines empathy as, the feeling that you understand and share another 's experience and emotions. Empathy consists of having the ability to feel another person 's feelings and the ability to place oneself in another person shoes or situation. In counseling, the therapist is expected to show empathy for their clients whose experiences are different from the counselor. The role of the counselor is to support the client with any issues or concerns. The role empathy plays in counseling.

Sherry Turkle argues the point of how people have sacrificed conversation for mere connection (Turkle 136)