9/17 | HW for Next Monday

HW: A) Read pp. 39-42 and 45-8 in articles packet.
B) Afterwards, look back over all the articles we’ve read.  Decide which article to quote and respond to for your Essay 1 (draft due next Wed).  Post a quotation & response from that article.
C) Post your description of using an app, imitating the way Sherry Turkle describes “Tinder” (notes on this exercise re-posted below).

Look at Turkle’s detailed description of how the app “Tinder” is used on p. 27.  Using a similar level of detail, write a description of an app that you use regularly and/or have had significant experiences on.  How does the app work? How does it affect the way you connect (or don’t connect) with other people? How does it affect how you think and feel?

16 thoughts on “9/17 | HW for Next Monday”

  1. In her book Reclaiming Conversation (2015), Sherry Turkle observes that “in romantic texting, responding to a communication with silence happens all the time.  It’s the NOTHING gambit. . . . As soon as texting had established itself in flirting, there was talk about how to handle the strategy of silence” (Turkle 177).  This passage is interesting to me because in it Turkle unpacks her notion of “the NOTHING gambit.”  As she goes on to explain, the NOTHING gambit refers to responding to an online communique with silence, which Turkle understands to be a silence of disapproval.  Her focus here is specifically on romantic relationships in which the people talking might be especially sensitive to how each other responds to what each says. Which ties into Turkle’s message that social media is pulling people apart from one another, because we are becoming less empathetic. Which only leads to conversation meeting silence with silence, because we would rather be active on our social media than to have a conversation with someone. The idea of a NOTHING gambit has flourished into face to face conversations as many believe it can be used in such conversations; when it only creates an awkward situation. People become someone with no empathy, no true connection when they speak to one another. A meaningful conversation turns into their regular online conversation; with great gaps of empathy and emotion because an empathy gap and NOTHING gambit have been engraved in our formation of conversation no matter if its online or offline. Many don’t notice that this silence and nothing gambit only harm a face to face conversation, they can be used online because you cannot understand what someone feels when they text. This continuous silence can be either hurtful or respectful depending on the conversations. But we need to evaluate the time when to empathetic in a conversation, and when to be considerably “offline”. Responding with silence becomes harder to achieve with in person conversations. Hence Sherry Turkle stresses that the NOTHING gambit only ruins the purity of a  conversation; this form of conversation should only be seen online, not in person because it will create an emapathy gap and division. 

  2.  
    In the article, “The Empathy Gap”, by Sherry Turkle, she claimed that the advance of “technology was encouraging us to forget that the essence of conversation is one where human meanings are understood, where empathy is engaged.” (p.8) What she might be saying could be that people are losing the ability to converse with each other face-to-face since people could just say whatever they want behind a screen. It really isn’t too strange for people to prefer communicating with others because it is much more convenient and there wouldn’t be any awkward situations such as losing a topic to speak about with the other party.
     
     
     
    During my free times, what I would be doing for the majority of the time would reading eastern light novels. That led to me finding an app called “Webnovel”, which is a app with a collection of novels that are translated into English with new chapters daily. This allowed me to find many new books of different genres to read to kill time. What was completely unexpected that I got from this app was finding many others who share the same hobby as me. There would be forums and also Facebook groups where we would recommend books to each other and also have discussions on many topics. Some would also share real life problems and might be hoping for some kind of help such as encouragement.
     

  3. In the book Reclaiming Conversation (2015), author Sherry Turkle talked about Tinder and the type of changes and effects it has caused. There are many more different kind of apps that we use as often as daily, or even hourly. One of the post popular app that causes some kind of change in people is Instagram. The app gives chance to users to choose whether they want to be seen publicly or not, allows strangers to get to know each other, or text to people you know in real life. Also, Instagram has the feature of sharing stories, and many more.  It lets us choose who to be connected, and also the ability to block people you don’t want to interact with on social media. It makes me feel like I can control my actions.

  4. In the article, “The Empathy Gap” by Sherry Turkle, Turkle shares experience that proves that technology is preventing people from having full conversations.  By “Full” meaning that conversations last for a long time. In the article Turkle claims, “We want to be with each other, but to also be connected to other people and places online”, people like spending time with friends, but they also want to use their phones which keeps them from having full conversations. She also says that her co-worker who is a therapist.
    Turkle’s detailed description of the app “Tinder” reminded me of instagram. Users can keep their profile private or public. If the user’s profile is public, then other users are able to see their story. People are able to send photos to each other just like Tinder. I use instagram to talk and share photos with friends. On a daily basis, I would probably check my phone twenty times. This prevents me from focusing on my work.

  5. In Sherry Turkle’s “Romance” article she discusses the changes relationships have gone through due to the introduction of technology. Now, instead of ignoring a person you didn’t want to talk to anymore you would disappear on them, or as Turkle likes to call it, “ the NOTHING Gambit.” In Sherry Turkle’s article she explains the NOTHING Gambit as, “not a resolved conversation or a conversation that has trailed off.” This way is essentially “ghosting”and is very common in our culture. It’s easy to lose interest in a person you’ve just met and instead of just explaining that you no longer wish to speak, you erase them as if you have never met.

    My summer after graduating high school, I was a certified dental assistant not wanting to spend my summer being stuck in the house. I was too lazy to go out and hand out my resume to potential bosses so, I started looking online and applying, with no luck. Finally, I came across this app called Indeed that allowed you to apply to jobs specific to what you were looking for. I was looking for a job in Manhattan as a dental assistant working for at least $16 an hour. I was able to find a match on 14th street with my desired pay. Because of Indeed,  I went on my first job interview and got my first official job that I started working at from the end of July to now(when I’m off from school). Now, whenever somebody tells me they’re looking for a job I refer them to Indeed.

  6. In the article, “It is the perfect the preoccupation for our Internet-saturated time, a ready-made platform to record and post our lives where others can see and post our lives where can see and experiences them in tandem with us. And in a way,  it signals a new frontier in the evolution in social media.” stated by JennaWortham in her article My Selfie , Myself. Her observations lead her to believe that social media connects us as a society and evolution on how we communicate with each other.

    Reddit is application where people chat on forums and messages boards. You click on the app and browse what you looking for. You can search for a community on reddit, there is a lot communities on it. I usually browsing for funny content on Reddit, like the Try not to Laugh videos.

  7. In the article “The Empathy Gap,” Sherry Turkle describe the reason of why empathy gap happen between human, which is beacuse of the development of technology, people become more depend on it. She confirms, “In both cases, technology was encouraging us to forget that essence of conversation is one where human meanings are understood, where empathy is engaged.” She show where is the empathy gap cause between people, which is communication, people become more use to communicate with other people online rather than face to face.

    The Tik Tok is a app where people can post their short video, which I just recently start using it. Once you open the app, there will be a random video showing up, you can scroll up to swith one, scroll down to the previous one, or scroll down on the first one to refresh. Furthermore, you can follow the poster you like and there is a selection bring user to the page which only have the video from the people they follow. There also have a choose where you can see the video which post by the people who live at the same city as you. It doesn’t really have to do with the connect with other people, because it just a app where people watch video, unless there is a poster which is your friend. It doesn’t affect my think or feeling yet, but it has a lot of effect on Chine because of the examine. For example, some video contain the information which is not allow to post online get pass through the examine. In addition, now almost all children have phone, and some of them start using this app, and become mature and acting something they shouldn’t do at their age.

     

  8. As said by Sherry Turkle in then article The Empathy Gap “technology was encouraging us to forget that the essence of conversation is one where human meanings are understood, where empathy is engaged.” Turkle’s point is a valid point which I agree with because Turkle says that we are so focused in this online world that we have forgotten the beauty of a conversation face to face, that we cannot even connect with anyone without a device. We rather connect with someone through a device rather than face to face which only decreases our by ability to feel for someone and understand their emotions. We have forgotten the connection and beauty of a conversation without a device because technology has become all that we think of, it revolves around our lives more than we know. A conversation creates a bond and a connection between two people; it is a humans way to express and know that someone is there, even to just listen. In the quotation, Turkle uses words like essence and empathy which captivate the idea that we have forgotten the significance of conversations making us less sensitive. Turkle’s dialect shows the true impact that technology had on humans it only made us robots with no emotion and feeling. We truly don’t understand anyone because you cannot truly show your emotions through a device; you could only feel for someone in person. 
     
      An app I commonly use would be Snapchat, it can be spotted as yellow app icon with a white ghost. Once you sign in to the app you open up to the chat section where all your friends are listed based on who you speak to most. The person or people you speak to more are at the top of the conversations list. Then if you swipe to the right your come to the camera where you can record videos or take pictures. Lastly if you swipe another time to the right you go to the stories section this is where your friends or the people you added have uploaded their story and you can watch them. You can also watch stories from subscriptions like brands or any famous people. This app is something I use frequently to chat and send videos to my friends, it is a way I connect with family from around the world and friends. You can also make calls on Snapchat audio calls and visual calls; you are being able to hear and see you friends and family allowing a reconnection. This app affects the way I feel and thinking a way to feel like I am there with the person and you feel connected and apart of the conversation because you can slo group chat; adding more than 1 person to chat with. Allowing me to feel like I am with the person wherever they are and understand what they are saying. In my opinion, Snapchat is an app that is great to connect and converse because it allows you to chat and call making it feel like a true connection between you and friends and or family. 

  9. In her book Reclaiming Conversation (2015), Sherry Turkle observes that “in romantic texting, responding to a communication with silence happens all the time.  It’s the NOTHING gambit. . . . As soon as texting had established itself in flirting, there was talk about how to handle the strategy of silence” (Turkle 177).  In this passage the “Nothing Gambit” mostly refers to an ignorance respond with silence which means that you don’t text anything to someone you just put that person on read by showing them that they are not that important to you. ” It is more like a conversation with someone who simply looks away as if they don’t understand” (Turkle 178) This shows how basically the Nothing Gambit is when in real life a person ignoring you and not answering your question by just ignoring you .  The way that the “Nothing Gambit” and ” Empathy Gap” connects is in both cases people don’t have empathy to each other because they don’t feel what the other person is thinking about or what are they feeling. The idea in both of this passages is how humans are becoming closer to technology and just moving away from the humanity and “face to face conversation”. The app that I mostly use is Snapchat. On snapchat you could create groups, have video chats, calls and post your snaps.  I use it mostly to communicate with my friends and i feel like it helps us to connect more because now as college started we don’t have much time to meet up.

  10. In the article, “The Empathy Gap” by Sherry Turkle, she explains herself the way our devices is handeling us. On page 9, “ Digital culture threatens our capacity for spontaneous talk, in, perhaps even more importantly, it undermines our ability to understand the value of talk.” In other words, we don’t know what’s going on behind the screens. Ever since technology has came to this world, our whole environment changed. Especially, one another to stay connected.

    When I don’t have access to phone or when I forget to pay my monthly bill, I use an app called Messenger. Messenger works by connecting to your family and friends. You can use it by texting, calling, sharing photos, and video chat. This app is the best for me because I can reach out to my friends if they not able to call me through my cell phone number. If I were to rate this app, I would give it a 10 out of 10 because it is very helpful to anyone.

  11. In the article, “The Empathy Gap”, Sherry Turkle explains how dating, and using social media effects peoples lives negatively, because they are not having “full conversations”. “More and more, we turn away from each other as our face-to-face communication competes with phones” (Turkle 31). This quotation shows that using our phones everyday can mess up our communication skills, when talking to people in person. This is something that is noticeable in our everyday lives when talking to people, because people feel more comfortable through text. In person, you are forced to listen, and talk back to people you really don’t enjoy conversations with rather then through text, it will be easier to ignore them by not responding, or blocking them even.

     

    When my phone is not on, or working I use WhatsApp. WhatsApp is a really common app lately, you can text, video chat, or call anyone, pretty much everywhere. For example, if my mom goes on vacation out of the states, I will be able to call and text her without a problem, with regular texting, it is much harder. The app is very helpful, especially when I need to contact my family who does not live in the U.S. I’d rate this app a 10 out of 10 because it is very useful.

  12. In Sherry Turkle’s “The Empathy Gap”, she talked about how the presence of technology has made people forget how to converse with each other in a way that we can understand and respond to other peoples emotions with empathy. On page 31 Turkle said, “As a culture ,our capacity for solitude is challenged by the culture of continual feed”, while advocating for the work of basic therapy. What she is saying here is that the point of therapy is for a client and therapist to give each other their full attention while alone together, but technology like cell phones makes it impossible for people to appreciate the solitude or human interaction that therapy offers. This inability to appreciate moments alone or with others without constantly checking a phone is something most people catch themselves doing often. I think that the continual feed offered by technology is more enticing to people than the real world at times and it negatively effects our ability to communicate with each other while actually giving our full attention.

    An app that I use often is Youtube. It’s a website where you can watch videos people make and subscribe to their channel if you want to see every new video they make. You can upload your own videos if you want as well but I don’t do that. The type of content posted on YouTube is extremely varied and can entertain people of all ages.  No matter what type of person you are or what interests you, you can find things you want to watch and you will never run out of things to want to watch. You can comment on YouTube videos you watch, saying absolutely anything you want and you can read other people’s comments. People that have a lot of subscribers on YouTube can make money from their videos by placing advertisements in the videos and picking up ad revenue. Some people make their living off of their YouTube videos and get famous from it.

  13. In the text “The Empathy Gap” by Sherry Turkle the author talks about technology and how it’s advancement has caused a “disconnect” between people in face to face conversations. “And increasingly with the rise of mobile devices, we were paying attention to our phones rather than each other. In both cases there was a flight from face-to-face conversation. In both cases, technology was encouraging us to forget that the essence of conversation is one where human meanings are understood, where empathy is engaged.” (Page 8) This quote shows how technology is affecting the way we talk to one another by leaving out the meaningful parts of a conversation like emotions. Nowadays people try covering it up by using a more crafted style of communication since texting allows more opportunities for someone to plan out how they would respond compared to a face to face conversation where everything is more in the moment.
    One app that I have been using for some time now is Snapchat and this app allows the user to upload a picture or a video on their “story” for 24 hours for their friends to see. This app uses a variety of features to keep the user interested from including animated filters to even basic features such as group chat. Snapchat is great to keep in touch with friends because their stories are just a tap away and you can see what that person has been up to throughout their day. Furthermore, it is so intuitive and allows almost anyone to create an account and start “snapping”. I think this is a great app because it allows others to share their life’s experiences and have their friends interact with them along the way.

  14. In the article “The Empathy Gap” by Sherry Turkle, the author states that technology is the responsible for creating a gap between people’s face-to-face conversations. And therefore, not being able to develop empathy for each other. She said after she changed her point of view of technology, “… We expected more from technology and less from each other. We were increasingly willing to talk to machines, even about intimate matters. And increasingly, with the rise of mobile devices, we were paying attention to our phones rather than each other” (Page 8). In other words, we do like to depend on our devices; perhaps not asking for help, not establishing communication  or not making live relationships, etc. We do think that devices can solve it all.
    One great example of a social media with the characteristics explained above is Instagram, an app that connects everyone through photos and videos sharing. The DM (Direct Messages) which is fundamental for the unknown people to get to know each other. The follow request which open up doors to people for becoming famous. After all, Instagram could be described as a place where your worthiness is based on likes and reproduction of videos, anyone can be a public figure by applying those criteria. Instagram has encourage many of us to seek for a virtual relationship instead of a physical one. Perhaps since it’s not real, no one could get judge. And for my own experience, I can agree with Sherry Turkle’s thesis or point of view of technology because sometimes I have been intimidated by the idea of meeting someone that I have been talking to for years. And I think this is because we or I have been creating a relationship base on nothing real. In other words, I have been talking to someone that do to know me at all. Adding the fact that people do not show their feeling, necessarily. It can be faked. We are just exchanging words through screens. In conclusion, technology isn’t just encouraging us create a gap of empathy on each other but to forget about each other, due to the highly amount of time that we do spend on it instead of be in person. 

  15. According to the article “The Empathy Gap” by Sherry Turkle, the authors states that technology is the one to blame for the disconnection of face to face conversations with human beings. Which then leads to not feeling empathy for others since we spend more times on screen than with each other. A quote that stood that says, “… We expected more from technology and less from each other. We were increasingly willing to talk to machines, even about intimate matters. And increasingly, with the rise of mobile devices, we were paying attention to our phones rather than each other in both cases there was a flight from face-to-face conversation. In both cases, technology was encouraging us to forget that the essence of conversation is one where human meanings are understood, where empathy is engaged.” (Page 8). This proves that millennial’s that we don’t know how to show emotion anymore so instead we cover it up with these things called ” emojis” that can somewhat sum how we feel, but it doesnt’t actually sum up how we actually feel inside. These new types of technology that keep coming up are going to affect the new generation so their brains would only be able to know how to turn to technology for help instead of human contact.

    A app that I used a lot is Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, Webtoons and Mystic Messenger. The funny thing is everyone knows that Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube is a form of social media that we can be able to connect to others to see what they are doing and how they are feeling that day. But the main two I really use often is Webtoons and Mystic Messenger. Webtoons is a comic app where free lance artist post their comic in order to notice. There are so many different generes like romance, thrillers, drama etc. The thing is the more I read different comics the more I realize how life is different and depressing. They make it seem where you can find love or a friend, but in reality the truth sucks and we are stuck wanting what we don’t have. For example, an app called Mystic Messenger which is a Korean otome game about chatting with attractive males (and a female!) and joining an organization called the RFA. So basically its an app that will let you talk to boys (fictional characters). The thing is they way you chat they give you options they provide for you so you can’t actually text normally. They can send you photos, emails and even call you! So it basically what people normally do ,but turned into a game. Sometimes those texts can be around 3am in the morning or 5am! but if you miss it you have to use hourglasses and that is money. Every text you miss can effect the story outcome on which male you choose to be with. Their are so many endings that it makes females very invested into this game. Its sad because I still use it and I lose sleep as well as I don’t talk to boys since I’m very shy and been rejected so many times that I just give up. So I use the app to imagine what it will be like to text “boys”. But in the end I lose my way to communicate with people and I find myself to not be comfortable with others.

  16. In the article, “The Empathy Gap” by Sherry Turkle, She talked about people start losing the ability to communicate with others face to face. On page 9, “In the past decades, technology has changed not only what we do, but who we are.” She wants us to know in today’s society, most of the new generation prefer using the phone to communicate with others instead of face to face talk. Because most of them think talking behind the screen is more comfortable, it causes us to pay more attention to the phone rather than to each other.

    An app I have been using is WeChat, it is a really common app. Most of the Chinese people would know about it and use it. WeChat is similar to Snapchat, it also allows us to upload whatever you want, your story, your pictures… You can text, voice chat, face chat anything. You can also contact your friends does not live in the United States. I would give a 10 out of 10 because it makes my life so much easier.

     

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