Communication In The Digital World

Technology is vastly changing how people communicate and interact with each other that some fear it may be changing humanity for the worse. Whether technology users are interrelating with loved ones or acquaintances and bosses, many people, especially the Millennials, prefer an always-connected life in the digital world. Two authors explore the manifestations of new communication practices through technology. In “Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other,” Sherry Turkle describes how technology creates a paradox- easy human connections as well as easy disconnections. Ian Frazier explores the same social disengagements due to technology in “Dearly Disconnected.” Both authors tackle the issue of connectedness

He sees the two as siblings: “The pay phone is to the cell phone as the troubled and difficult older sibling is to the cherished newborn” (7). Personifying the two depicts that the cell phone is new and fits modern times, while the old pay phone becomes outdated and less important. Turkle discusses digital communication in general. She says: “Teenagers tell me they sleep with their cell phone, and even when it isn't on their person...they know when their phone is vibrating. The technology has become like a phantom limb...” (11). Apart from using their phones, they depend on the Internet and social media to be always on and connected. Essentially, Frazier is concerned of the eventual demise of the pay phone. In New York, he looked for one: “[He] picked up one receiver after the next without success. Meanwhile, as [he] scanned down the long block, [he] counted half a dozen or more pedestrians talking on their cell phones” (6). Sad, he cannot help but feel sorry for an old technology that has lost its relevance in the modern society. Turkle explores the implications of online connections in a broad sense: “Their digitized friendships... may prepare them, at times through nothing more than their superficiality, for relationships that could bring superficiality to a higher power, that is, for relationships with the inanimate (11). She questions how technology results in many weak relationships. The authors have different concerns in their