Comparison Essay (Eng Comp 1)

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Electronic Interaction Is Making Americans Less Literate What is the Impact of Cyberlife?, 2008 Jeremy , "Virtual Companionship," , October 11, 2006. Reproduced byRifkin International Herald Tribune permission of the author.

is the author of Jeremy Rifkin The Age of Access and many other books about the impact of scientific, technological, and cultural changes on the economy, society, and the environment.

People all over the world are preoccupied with developing new technologies for communicating with one another, but while people are communicating more, they seem to be having more trouble expressing themselves. Furthermore, future generations seem doomed to lose emotional attachments with their fellow human beings. To help with this problem, researchers are trying to develop computerized virtual characters who can recognize human emotions and respond accordingly. Such technological pretensions are both sad and frightening.

Over the past 20 years or so [since 1986], we have been preoccupied with developing new ways of communicating with each other. Our cellphones, computers, Blackberries, text messaging, e-mail and the Internet connect 25 percent of the human race in a speed-of-light global village.

At the same time that we are connecting the central nervous system of our species in an electronic embrace, the human vocabulary is plummeting all over the world, making it more difficult to express ourselves. It appears that we are all communicating more, but saying less.

Declining Literacy, Growing Loneliness

According to a national survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Education [DOE], English literacy among college graduates has declined dramatically in the past 10 years [since 1996]. Only 31 percent of college graduates today are proficient in English literacy, compared with 40 percent just a decade ago. Grover J. Whitehurst, the director of the DOE Institute responsible for overseeing the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, said that he believes that literacy is declining as a result of the increase in television viewing and surfing the Internet.

Worse, it seems the more connected we are in our electronic landscapes, the lonelier we find ourselves. A study by the Kaiser Family Fund showed that American children now spend an average of 6.5 hours per day watching television, surfing the Internet, text messaging and playing with video games and other electronic media. More worrisome, the study found that most children interact with electronic media alone.

Our children are losing the emotional attachments that come with face-to-face participation with their fellow human beings. Nor are American youngsters an anomaly. Children in other high-tech countries are following close on the heels of their American peers. This new condition can be described as the "high-tech blues."

Virtual High-Tech Blues

Are future generations to be forever lonely? No, say the technological optimists. Engineers at some of the leading technology centers are feverishly working on the next generation of technological marvels to address our lonesome high-tech existence. The field is called "affective computing" and the goal is to create technology that can express emotion, interpret and respond to the emotions of their human handlers, and even establish a sense of intimacy with their human companions. Built-in cameras allow the computers to detect even subtle changes in facial expressions, which are then processed in real time, allowing the computer to recognize the emotional state of the person.

A growing number of young people find themselves enmeshed in virtual worlds where make-believe substitutes for real-life experience.

Rosalind Picard, one of the pioneer researchers in the field of "affective computing," reports on a study done at the [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] MIT Media Lab. A computerized virtual person named "Laura" plays the role of an exercise adviser, helping real-life subjects. Laura is capable of conversing and is able to use hand gestures, eye-gaze behavior, posture shifts, head-nods and facial expressions. Laura, like any good exercise trainer, provides feedback on their performance, helps them improve on their regimen, and gives empathetic verbal and facial feedback.

The reactions of the subjects are revealing. Compared with subjects interacting with a "non-relational" computer interface, a number of the subjects—but not all—working with Laura reported an emotional rapport similar with what one might expect with a real-life trainer.

Other experiments conducted at Stanford University report similarly positive results with empathetic embodied computer agents interacting with subjects, leading researchers to conclude that "embodied computer agents are indeed social actors in the truest sense of the word 'social,' capable of forming relationships with users comparable to those found in the world of human-human interactions."

It's hard to know whether to laugh off such technological pretensions as sadly pathological or whether to be truly frightened. There is no doubt that a growing number of young people find themselves enmeshed in virtual worlds where make believe subtitutes for real-life experience. With "affective computing" looming on the horizon, the truly lonely can look forward to interacting with silicon companions, programmed to empathize and even care.

Progress? Surely we can do better.