Comparing Turkle's Work With Children And Furbie

NARCISSUS & THE PROJECTION IN THE POND
As this debate goes on, we continue to project ourselves onto the technologies at hand. Turkle’s work with children and the Furbie return simple outcomes. They love their Furbie because their Furbie loves them3. However, it tells us much more that the children can express such a capacity of emotions for a toy they know is not alive. Turkle’s children go so far as to feel extreme remorse, regret and sadness for Furbies that have been “disengaged” by removed batteries. These Furbies are essentially restarted, all the past experiences and knowledge the Furbie gained from their owner is lost. The toy still has the ability to work, and perform, in the same exact way, but the children, more often than not,

Technology may enforce narcissistic habits, or make us reveal narcissism within us, but it’s not a machine that generates narcissism. On one hand Turkle suggests that technology creates one aspect about us, narcissism, and then she states that technology is used because of a certain aspect about us, our vulnerabilities. So, what is technology here, creating our mental states or being a medium for those mental states? The individuals responsible for most technological advances had no intention for them to be used for our mindless self-indulgence in such a way, and people continue to use technology and media for advancing all aspects of our lives. Many, who use social media, may act out or seem self-involved, but technology is still utilized for education, research and advancements, the majority of those using technology to its capacity are not using Facebook or Instagram. To generalize technology at such an early stage, is a bit extreme. So the child in love with Furbie, and the adults taking selfies, are not hypnotized, or being induced to act out a certain way. They are guilty of being themselves, quite honestly, projecting themselves into a space that can be all about “me”. And the children may look and seem as if they are taking care of a toy, but they are placing a part of themselves into the toy, and when this dies, that’s the real

Opting out may be harder than expected, even though no one forces you to participate on the “web”, the chances of you “missing something” are large, or so this is what many fell with anxiety due to the level of investment into this space. The truth is there won’t be much missed, about yourself, if you decide to deactivate your social media persona. You will be forced to engage with those you love in a more tangible way, and you will find that your “followers” are more genuine in real time, and your filter for whom you spend time to contact is more specific and provides a more efficient emotional way of connecting. The generations of the future may come to find that tapping into the lives of their 1,000 friends and followers on a digital platter, via brief gestures, “likes” and comments, is much less meaningful, but vast, than networking in real time. They will find that technology can help them find ties in the real world, but the real word dimension is where things must take place, in order to take hold and “solidify”. The growing anxiety we allow to take hold of us when we are “disconnected”, and the fact that we use techs to enhance our daily activities, even if for the better, makes us more likely to prefer the digital dimension. Most likely, the