Today’s technology allows us to communicate with others on a constant basis. But since text messaging and Facebook are so widely used and convenient, after a while it may seem like our relationships are with the machines, rather than the people on the other side of them.
That will be the focal point of “Cyberintimacies,” the lecture Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Sherry Turkle will be giving at the University Friday night.
Named one of Time Magazine’s Innovators of the Internet, Turkle is the director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, a research center focused on the evolving relationships between people and objects. Her topic, cyberintimacies, refers to the kinds of relationships people have with machines through things like text messaging, Facebook and The Sims, among others.
“How can we change the kinds of connections, the kind of intimacies, the relationships we form with other people, essentially when we meet and greet them through simulation?” Turkle said in a phone interview from Cambridge, Mass.
Turkle – who described her lecture as analytical and critical, but not dismissive – said people’s computers often mirror themselves, from their desktop arrangements to Second Life personas.
Second Life is an interactive Web site where users create and control their personas, or avatars, which inhabit the virtual world.
“There are a lot of Angelina Jolie look-alikes on there,” Turkle said. “It’s like a better you or a new-and-improved you.”
Turkle has been studying “computers and their effect on self” for years. She’s written several books on the subject. The most recent, “Evocative Objects: Things We Think With,” was published in June with two follow-up volumes scheduled for 2008.
Not a fan of the word “addictive,” she prefers to think of technology as “seductive.” She noted that the more we use technology, the more entrenched in it we become.
“The more people get in touch with you virtually, the more that becomes the place you live,” she said, using her 16-year-old daughter and her cell phone as an example.
“In her English class, she’s read Thoreau and Emerson and Yeats, and she’s writing these papers about going away and finding your true self,” she said. “Meanwhile, she’s never five minutes without being plugged in.”
While Turkle doesn’t plan to discuss Tamagotchis, handheld virtual pets that were popular in the late 1990s, in her lecture, she thinks they’re another great example of the relationships people have with machines.
“What’s interesting about them is that children didn’t want them to die,” she said. “Tamagotchis are a great example of how quickly we attach to something we feel needs our nurturing.”
Turkle’s visit to the University is thanks in large part to Kate Mondloch, an art history professor in the School of Architecture & Allied Arts. As a member of the school’s lecture and events committee, Mondloch nominated Turkle, who was then elected by the rest of the group.
“I’ve been interested in her work for a long time,” Mondloch said. “I was interested in how she looks at the relationships between humans and technology in terms of humanities, as opposed to being a scientist.”
Turkle’s free lecture is part of the School of Architecture and Allied Art Koehn Colloquia series.
Supported by the Michael and Stacy Koehn Endowment Fund invested at the University of Oregon Foundation, the nine-year-old Koehn Colloquia lecture series brings a variety of scholars to the University.
“It’s an interesting idea, the Koehn Colloquium, to bring speakers to our students, faculty and the public that bring perspective to another discipline that has a connection that intersects,” said Karen Johnson, the School of Architecture and Allied Arts’ assistant dean of external relations and development.
In addition to the lecture, each colloquium includes a one-credit seminar for graduate students and faculty. The group met last week to discuss some of Turkle’s work. They will meet again Friday afternoon to discuss it again with Turkle herself.
“What’s so fantastic about her, coming from a nerdy professor perspective, is that she’s such a good writer and a clear explicator,” said Mondloch, who is facilitating the seminar. She added that while Turkle’s lectures may have complex subject matter, she delivers them in such a way that anyone can understand.
Johnson is also looking forward to Turkle’s lecture.
“This is really interesting work because we have sound on our phones, the computer reacts to us,” she said. “I’m interested in what she’s going to say.”
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