two paragraph
Identify the Premises and Conclusions
1. “Since pain is a state of consciousness, a ‘mental event,’ it can never be directly observed.” (source:
Peter Singer, “Animal Liberation,” 1973)
2. A meter is longer than a yard. Therefore, since this ship is 100 meters long, it is longer than a football
field.
3. “I think [Sen. John Kerry] was right [to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act]. I think he was right
because what happened with the Defense of Marriage Act is it took away the power of states, like
Vermont, to be able to do what they chose to do about civil unions, about these kinds of marriage
issues.… I think these are decisions the states should have the power to make. And the Defense of Marriage Act, as I understand it…would have taken away that power. And I think that’s wrong – that power should not be taken away from the states.” (source: Sen. John Edwards, January 22, 2004)
4. “All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the
personality.” (source: Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 1963)
5. “Rights are either God-given or evolve out of the democratic process. Most rights are based on the
ability of people to agree on a social contract, the ability to make and keep agreements. Animals
cannot possibly reach such an agreement with other creatures. They cannot respect anyone else’s
rights. Therefore they cannot be said to have rights.” (source: Rush Limbaugh, “The Way Things Ought
to Be,” 1992)
6. “Twenty-eight children in the United States were killed by falling television sets between 1990 and
1997. That is four times as many people as were killed by great white shark attacks in the twentieth
century. Loosely speaking, this means that watching ‘Jaws’ on TV is more dangerous than swimming in
the Pacific. (source: “The Statistical Shark,” The New York Times, September 6, 2001)
7. “Has it ever occurred to you how lucky you are to be alive? More than 99% of all creatures that have
ever lived have died without progeny, but not a single one of your ancestors falls into this group!”
(source: Daniel C. Dennett, “Darwin’s Dangerous Ideas,” 1995)
SOCIETY | Ar ticles & More
I keep technology at a little distance, which makes me unusual among millennials. Four
out of five of my peers—those born after 1980—own mobile devices, which are always on,
always on us, and always connected to social media like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
But while all my friends seem wired into their smartphones 24-7, I’ve turned off
notifications on my iPhone and I participate in the occasional technology Shabbat.
It’s hard to shake the feeling that, although smartphones open the door to new kinds of
social connection, they burn through precious social capital—the web of social networks
that research says can help us to be happier, healthier, and better employed.
I’m not alone. In fact, Greater Good contributor Barbara Fredrickson published a study last
year that suggests smartphone use may be taking a toll “on our biological capacity to
connect with other people.”
But do digital devices and social media really disconnect us from the flesh-and-blood
people in our lives? Or can mobile devices actually add to our social capital? Researchers
are starting to explore these questions—and the answers suggest that our social media
presence need not detract from our real-world social connections. In fact, technology can
actually increase our social capital, if we know how to use it.
When it’s smart to use smartphones
Does Technology Cut Us Off from Other People?
Three new studies paint a surprisingly complicated picture of the role of mobile devices in our social lives—and suggest steps we can take to make the most of technology. BY LAUREN KLEIN | MARCH 12, 2014
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First up, do smartphones actually reduce our social capital?
To find out, a team of researchers at the University of Florida surveyed 339 students about
the intensity of their smartphone use and online social networking. They found that, on
average, participants reported spending about 100-200 minutes per day using the Internet
and about 30-90 minutes using social networks. Then the students answered questions
about four dimensions of social capital:
Trust, measured with questions like, “Generally speaking, there is someone I can turn to for advice about making very important decisions.”
Organizational participation, measured simply by their number of group memberships.
Political participation, measured by how often they watched political debates or participated in demonstrations.
Network resources, measured by the people of people they know who could provide different resources, such as a holiday homes abroad or access to professional
journals.
The results? Across the board, heavy smartphone use was positively associated with all
four measures of social capital. So it seems that all those people who are glued to their
phones are not necessarily more socially isolated.
But this relationship only exists to the extent that the smartphones were being used for
their social networking capabilities, as opposed to random Internet surfing. In other
words, only those who used their smartphones for social media like Google+ or Twitter
knew more people, were more involved with organizations, participated more actively in
politics, and perceived more trust among their peers.
This study was of young people. Do people on the other end of the age spectrum also
benefit from online social networking?
Social media help older people stay connected
Studies have shown that older adults—those 65 years and up—who use social networking
sites benefit from better health, reduce their chances of cognitive decline, and prevent
premature death. But only four percent of Facebook users in the United States are over 65,
which suggests that older adults may be missing valuable opportunities to strengthen their
social ties through social media.
A team of Mexican researchers designed their own type of social media platform, called
Tlatoque, which borrows many of its features from popular networking sites (e.g., it has a
news feed, status updates, and photo sharing capabilities). After a few weeks, the
researchers looked at how interactions through Tlatoque influenced social capital and
interactions in the real world.
They found that the system significantly enriched these adults’ relationships with close
friends and family. The authors suggest that’s because the system helped them become
more aware of what their relatives were up to, enabling the sharing of information with
friends and family who prefer social media to the “more traditional” ways of staying in
touch. This catalyzed and enriched real-world conversations, according to the results.
While Tlatoque might not be coming to an app store near you anytime soon, this study is
the first to suggest that we can use our online social capital to enrich our in-person
encounters. It’s a good first step toward understanding the relationship between online
and offline social capital—and how both of these networks might influence one another.
It takes a village on Twitter
The results of these two studies seem conclusive: Together, smartphones and social media
can increase your social capital.
But are all forms of social capital created equal? Another study, recently published in the
International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, looked at how the micro-blogging
platform Twitter builds different types of social capital.
On Twitter, all messages posted are publicly available in the global feed of “tweets.” But to
filter this feed, users can choose to follow other users. That’s a great way to learn about a
new job, read about different experiences and opinions, or feel like part of a group that’s
bigger than yourself.
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kindness.
These types of bonds, which are largely informational, are described by researchers as
bridging social capital, which the authors loosely define as, “the formation of rather weak
ties between people from different networks.” Bonding social capital, on the other hand,
has a more emotional tone. Bonding happens in homogenous groups of like-minded
individuals, like friends or family. So if bonding capital is about connecting more deeply,
then bridging capital is about connecting more widely.
If you were to guess, which one would you say Twitter helps to build?
The researchers had a hypothesis that it was both. So they asked 264 Twitter users to
report their number of followers and followees, estimate the number of minutes they
spend on Twitter on an average day, and answer a few questions that would approximate a
measure of both bridging and bonding social capital. A typical question for bridging social
capital asks if “interacting with people on Twitter makes me feel like part of a greater
community”; a question for bonding social capital asks if, on Twitter, “there are several
people I trust to help solve my problems.”
Twitter did indeed seem associated with both bonding and bridging social capital—but
only if the number people you interact with on Twitter fell within a goldilocks zone of not
too few and not too many.
For example, people who spent the most
spent more time on Twitter and followed
more users reported more bridging capital.
This is because the more you follow, the more
opportunity you have to gain exposure to new
ideas—or, as the authors say, to “expand your
horizons” beyond your “narrow daily
existence.” So is it best to follow as many
people as possible? The answer is no,
according to this study—when we follow too
many people, we risk information overload. As
the authors caution us, “There can be too
much of a good thing.” More is better, but only
up to a point.
Explore the health bene�ts of social
connection here and here.
When it comes to bonding social capital, a
similar principle applies. They found that a
user with an engaged and dedicated audience
of followers is likely to feel a great sense of
emotional support. But if that user’s follower
network becomes too large, it becomes an
abstract faceless mass, “which increases the user’s psychological distance from his or her
followers.”
So to build the most bridging and bonding capital on Twitter, you want a village of
followers, not a teeming metropolis.
What might this have to do with our offline social capital? While it wasn’t the main focus
of this study, researchers found that those who feel more connected in their everyday lives
also seemed to feel more connected to their online peers, not unlike the elderly
participants of Tlatoque. So in some way, there is a relationship between your offline self
and your online profile. The Tlatoque study even suggests that online connections can
support the offline ones.
Taken together, these three studies hint at a compelling story—that social networking
services can be a significant way of developing, maintaining, and strengthening our social
connections, both online and in person. Using social networking services builds social
capital in a number of ways: greater emotional support, lower levels of loneliness, and
more feelings of connectedness. But these studies also contain a note of caution: Too
many followers and too much participation can lead to information overload, depression,
and feelings of disconnectedness.
The bottom line? I’m going to keep my iPhone and my Facebook account—but I think I’ll
also keep setting limits.
About the Author Lauren Klein
MIND & BODY | Ar ticles & More
What happens when we become too dependent on our mobile phones? According to MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle, author of the new book Reclaiming Conversation, we lose our ability to have deeper, more spontaneous conversations with others, changing the nature of our social interactions in alarming ways.
Sherry Turkle
Turkle has spent the last 20 years studying the impacts of technology on how we behave alone and in groups. Though initially excited by technology’s potential to transform society for the better, she has become increasingly worried about how new technologies, cell phones in particular, are eroding the social fabric of our communities.
In her previous book, the bestselling Alone Together, she articulated her fears that technology was making us feel more and more isolated, even as it promised to make us more connected. Since that book came out in 2012, technology has become even more ubiquitous and entwined with our modern existence. Reclaiming Conversation is Turkle’s call to take a closer look at the social effects of cell phones and to re-sanctify the role of conversation in our everyday lives in order to preserve our capacity for empathy, introspection, creativity, and intimacy.
How Smartphones Are Killing Conversation A Q&A with MIT professor Sherry Turkle about her new book, Reclaiming Conversation. BY JILL SUTTIE | DECEMBER 7, 2015
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I interviewed Turkle by phone to talk about her book and some of the questions it raises. Here is an edited version of our conversation.
Jill Suttie: Your new book warns that cell phones and other portable communication technology are killing the art of conversation. Why did you want to focus on conversation, specifically?
Sherry Turkle: Because conversation is the most human and humanizing thing that we do. It’s where empathy is born, where intimacy is born—because of eye contact, because we can hear the tones of another person’s voice, sense their body movements, sense their presence. It’s where we learn about other people. But, without meaning to, without having made a plan, we’ve actually moved away from conversation in a way that my research was showing is hurting us.
JS: How are cell phones and other technologies hurting us?
ST: Eighty-nine percent of Americans say that during their last social interaction, they took out a phone, and 82 percent said that it deteriorated the conversation they were in. Basically, we’re doing something that we know is hurting our interactions.
I’ll point to a study. If you put a cell phone into a social interaction, it does two things: First, it decreases the quality of what you talk about, because you talk about things where you wouldn’t mind being interrupted, which makes sense, and, secondly, it decreases the empathic connection that people feel toward each other.
So, even something as simple as going to lunch and putting a cell phone on the table decreases the emotional importance of what people are willing to talk about, and it decreases the connection that the two people feel toward one another. If you multiply that by all of the times you have a cell phone on the table when you have coffee with someone or are at breakfast with your child or are talking with your partner about how you’re feeling, we’re doing this to each other 10, 20, 30 times a day.
JS: So, why are humans so vulnerable to the allure of the cell phone, if it’s actually hurting our interactions?
ST: Cell phones make us promises that are like gifts from a benevolent genie—that we will never have to be alone, that we will never be bored, that we can put our attention wherever we want it to be, and that we can multitask, which is perhaps the most seductive
of all. That ability to put your attention wherever you want it to be has become the thing people want most in their social interactions—that feeling that you don’t have to commit yourself 100 percent and you can avoid the terror that there will be a moment in an interaction when you’ll be bored.
Actually allowing yourself a moment of boredom is crucial to human interaction and it’s crucial to your brain as well. When you’re bored, your brain isn’t bored at all—it’s replenishing itself, and it needs that down time.
We’re very susceptible to cell phones, and we even get a neurochemical high from the constant stimulation that our phones give us.
Penguin Press, 2015, 436 pages
I’ve spent the last 20 years studying how compelling technology is, but you know what? We can still change. We can use our phones in ways that are better for our kids, our families, our work, and ourselves. It’s the wrong analogy to say we’re addicted to our technology. It’s not heroin.
JS: One thing that struck me in your book was that many people who you interviewed talked about the benefits of handling conflict or difficult emotional issues online. They said they could be more careful with their responses and help decrease interpersonal tensions. That seems like a good thing. What’s the problem with that idea?
ST: It was a big surprise when I did the research for my book to learn how many people want to dial down fighting or dealing with difficult emotional issues with a partner or with their children by doing it online.
But let’s take the child example. If you do that with your child, if you only deal with them in this controlled way, you are basically playing into your child’s worst fear—that their truth, their rage, their unedited feelings, are something that you can’t handle. And that’s exactly what a parent shouldn’t be saying to a child. Your child doesn’t need to hear that you can’t take and accept and honor the intensity of their feelings.
People need to share their emotions—I feel very strongly about this. I understand why people avoid conflict, but people who use this method end up with children who think that the things they feel aren’t OK. There’s a variant of this, which is interesting, where parents give their children robots to talk to or want their children to talk to Siri, because somehow that will be a safer place to get out their feelings. Again, that’s exactly what your child doesn’t need.
JS: Some studies seem to show that increased social media use actually increases social interaction offline. I wonder how this squares with your thesis?
ST: How I interpret that data is that if you’re a social person, a socially active person, your use of social media becomes part of your social profile. And I think that’s great. My book is not anti-technology; it’s pro-conversation. So, if you find that your use of social media increases your number of face-to-face conversations, then I’m 100 percent for it.
Another person who might be helped by social media is someone who uses it for taking baby steps toward meeting people for face-to-face conversations. If you’re that kind of person, I’m totally supportive.
I’m more concerned about people for whom social media becomes a kind of substitute, who literally post something on Facebook and just sit there and watch whether they get 100 likes on their picture, whose self-worth and focus becomes dictated by how they are accepted, wanted, and desired by social media.
And I’m concerned about the many other situations in which you and I are talking at a dinner party with six other people, and everyone is texting at the meal and applying the “three-person rule”—that three people have to have their heads up before anyone feels it’s safe to put their head down to text. In this situation, where everyone is both paying
MORE ON TECHNOLOGY Read Jill Suttie's review of Reclaiming Conversation.
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�ve ways to build caring community on social media.
Take Christine Carter's advice to use technology intentionally and stop checking your freaking phone.
Learn how technology is shaping romance.
attention and not paying attention, you end up with nobody talking about what’s really on their minds in any serious, significant way, and we end up with trivial conversations, not feeling connected to one another.
JS: You also write about how conversation affects the workplace environment. Aren’t conversations just distractions to getting work done? Why support conversation at work?
ST: In the workplace, you need to create sacred spaces for conversation because, number one, conversation actually increases the bottom line. All the studies show that when people are allowed to talk to each other, they do better—they’re more collaborative, they’re more creative, they get more done.
It’s very important for companies to make space for conversation in the workplace. But if a manager doesn’t model to employees that it’s OK to be off of their email in order to have conversation, nothing is going to get accomplished. I went to one workplace that had cappuccino machines every 10 feet and tables the right size for conversation, where everything was built for conversation. But people were feeling that the most important way to show devotion to the company was answering their email immediately. You can’t have conversation if you have to be constantly on your email. Some of the people I interviewed were terrified to be away from their phones. That translates into bringing
your cell phone to breakfast and not having breakfast with your kids.
JS: If technology is so ubiquitous yet problematic, what recommendations do you make for keeping it at a manageable level without getting so hooked?
ST: The path ahead is not a path where we do without technology, but of living in greater harmony with it. Among the first steps I see is to create sacred spaces—the kitchen, the dining room, the car—that are device-free and set aside for conversation. When you have lunch with a friend or colleague or family member, don’t put a phone on the table between you. Make meals a time when you are there to listen and be heard.
When we move in and out of conversations with our friends in the room and all the people we can reach on our phones, we miss out on the kinds of conversations where empathy is born and intimacy thrives. I met a wise college junior who spoke about the “seven-minute rule”: It takes seven minutes to know if a conversation is going to be interesting. And she admitted that she rarely was willing to put in her seven minutes. At the first “lull,” she went to her phone. But it’s when we stumble, hesitate, and have those “lulls” that we reveal ourselves most to each other.
So allow for those human moments, accept that life is not a steady “feed,” and learn to savor the pace of conversation—for empathy, for community, for creativity.
About the Author Jill Suttie
Jill Suttie, Psy.D., is Greater Good’s book review editor and a frequent contributor to the magazine.