People ignore the plea, but only for a few moments. The Furby says "Me scared" in a convincingly infantile voice. The Barbie doesn't react and can be inverted indefinitely. The rodent writhes in obvious discomfort and people quickly release it. In an intriguing psychological experiment, subjects are asked to take a Furby, a Barbie doll and a live gerbil and hold them upside down in turn. It has no intelligence, but it can fake attachment. It looks part owl, part hamster and is programmed to respond to human attention.
“They start to need other people to feel validated and they cannot approach others as full, individual, differentiated people.T he Furby is a fluffy robot toy that was popular in the late 90s. “When they’re always connected, children, adolescents and adults become dependent on the presence of others for validation in the most basic ways,” says Turkle. The research also shows that over-reliance on social technology may be causing us to become disconnected from our sense of self.
“Children say they try to make eye contact with their parents and are frustrated because their parents are looking down at their smartphones when they come out of school or after-school activities,” says Turkle.
The impact is often felt among children who must compete with digital devices for their parents’ attention. Through her research studies and interviews, Turkle concluded that an over-reliance on digital communication can result in feelings of real-world isolation and loneliness, emotional disconnection, anxiety and mental exhaustion.
Turkle interviewed 300 children and 150 adults to understand how digital social networks and the texting culture are transforming the way people relate to their parents, friends and community.Īt the same time, digital technology “can provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship, without the demands of intimacy,” Turkle says. “Some people use social networks to keep up with real friendships, to keep them lively and up-to-date,” says Turkle, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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