Wesley Chandler  

Professor Miller 

English 110

2 February 2024

Everything you do in the modern world is for the most part shown to you or worked on through phones. Whether it’s the story you read on your IPad, or even the TikTok you had recently posted, the world is very involved with its technology. In “The Empathy Diaries”, by Sherry Turkle a professor at MIT, talks about how technology has changed human behavior and society from her studies as well as her from her point of view. The short story gives the reader a different point of view  on the negatives and positives that come with technology as it continues to shape the way we relate to ourselves and others.  From my perspective, I believe that technology is changing our society in a positive and a negative way.

One of the ways that Sherry Turkle shows technology from a negative point of view is when she begins to talk about cellphones. In the passage it states,“We say we turn our attention when we’re “bored”. And we often find ourselves bored because we have become accustomed to a constant feed of connection, information, and entertainment. We are forever elsewhere. At class or at church or business meetings, we pay attention to what interests us and then when it doesn’t” (Pg 344 Par 3).  It’s a fact that whenever we have nothing to do the first thing we look for is our phones, and it can become a distraction. Not only that, it can cause us to lose focus on what’s in front of us. Personally, I can name countless times sitting in my bed watching youtube and having to stay up later than I should have to get my work done. If we did not have these distractions we could be more productive and have time to ourselves.