Twitter A ‘Form Of Modern Madness,’ Because Of Course It Is.

26 Jan 2011 by Jasmine Stone in Gadgets, Social, Tech/Sci, Vibe, World

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Oh, good! Somebody with a PHD decided to speak out against ‘the twitters,’ on the ground that  social networking websites are making us “less human” by isolating people from reality. Presumably also responsible are trading card games, Playstation, and books.

Sherry Turkle, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and unfortunate proponent of cyber-scepticism, recently released Alone Together, a book that warns about the dangers of social networking, arguing that Twitter and Facebook can be seen as a modern form of madness. She isn’t too keen on this ‘Yahoo!’ thing either, because she doesn’t want the government to find out about her overdue Betamax rentals. I am saying that her views are archaic, and unfortunate, you see.

Recent controversy fuels Turkle’s views, unfortunately – the death of Simone Black, who made her suicide note available to hundreds of her online friends – none of whom made a move to prevent the suicide – as well as cases of parent neglect due to overuse of social networks. The question of whether or not shitty parents would be shitty parents even without Farmville is not brought up.

Granted, Turkle isn’t denouncing technology out of some knee-jerk luddite reaction; her previous works, The Second Self and Life on the Screen, were comparatively optimistic about the whole technology situation. Instead, she warns about the dangers of substituting online connections for tangible, ‘real’ connections, citing the case of Simone Black as an instance where online connections failed.

This view seems eager to place the blame on something other than the persons involved in any given tragedy. Surprise!

[Alone Together]

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