SOCI 305 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Sherry Turkle, Hikikomori, Sidney Tarrow
9 Aug 2019
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Lecture 16: Sherry Turkle continued
• Being alone together
• People want to control where they put their attention – you want to attend
board meetings but only focus on the things that interest you (so you text)
• People prefer to remove themselves from social relationship – people can’t
get enough of each other but only at an arms length (Goldylocks effect)
• What’s wrong with having a conversation: it takes place in real time and you
can’t control what you are going to say
- by email, texting, etc you are able to edit and delete and retouch
yourself to present your ideal self
- human relationships are rich and messy and we clean them up
through technology and we sacrifice conversation for shallow
connection
- texts don’t work for learning about each other
- conversations in real time allow for people to learn how to self-reflect
• technology has led to the feeling everyone feels where no one is listening to
us
- this leads to the development of companion robots
• we expect more from technology and less from each other
- technology appeals to us most where we are most vulnerable – we
create technology to create the illusion of companionship without the
effort of friendship
Extreme example of alone but together: Hikikomori “acute social withdrawal”
• modern-day hermits (as many as 1 million people affected by this)
• defined in japan as people who refuse to leave their house and thus isolate
themselves from society in their homes for a period exceeding six months
• major social problem
• important factors:
- social factors: status, achievement, fear of failure
- technological factors: high speed internet, instant delivery etc
Collective action
• politics and socialization
- political socialization: the process through which individuals are
educated and assimilated into the political culture of a community –
Maclean and wood
- attitudes toward and knowledge about political matters are passed
within a society
- replication of political norms in a society
• there is a left/right spectrum (one-dimensional model) in along which people
identify politically
• two dimensional model taking social and economic values into account
Political collective action
• election campaigns
• social movements
