Turkle

How does Turkle's claim challenge Mike Wesch's call for digital community and connection, if at all?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Just as a starting place, as I began the piece, I immediately became defensive and biased against Turkle because of her phrasing, to wit: "We text (and shop and go on Facebook) during classes and when we’re on dates" my emphasis.  The first hour of the first class was dedicated to talking about the difference between Prensky's digital natives and digital immigrants.  By treating Facebook as a noun rather than a verb, Ms. Terkle positions herself as an inexorable immigrant, a stodgy Luddite.  She is now the Internet equivalent of the cantankerous neighbor, bemoaning the loss of the "good old days."  It makes me the closed-minded pot in this situation, but I know I will have a hard time sympathizing with the thesis of a closed-minded kettle.  I'll read the article now...
***
Terkle's claim challenges Wesch's on the grounds that there is a difference between conversation (authentic) and connection (inauthentic), and that the inescapable proliferation of digital technology facilitates only the most shallow of human relations.

    Her most recent book may be subtitled Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other, but she doesn't substantiate that claim (also made in paragraph 20) with anything other than specious anecdotes, if at all.  "We want to customize our lives," she says.  "We want to move in and out of where we are because the thing we value most is control over where we focus our attention. We have gotten used to the idea of being in a tribe of one, loyal to our own party."  But when has it ever been different?  Hasn't technology just made it easier?  Hasn't the idea of the strong, untethered, decisive, uncompromising and pioneering iconoclast been part of the American mythology?  Witness President T. Roosevelt, Ani DiFranco, Pete Seeger, et al.  In Terkle's mind, (this current) technology is not just ornamental, it profoundly affects the development of human relations, which to her, is what makes life worth living.  
    The author forwards her thesis in paragraph 12: "No matter how valuable," she says, "(online interactions) do not substitute for conversation."  We are, according to Ms. Terkle, mistaking the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself.  And in doing so, committing ourselves and (more importantly - it is implied - human posterity) to a future of bowling alone.  
    From what I have read, it appears that tonight's author and Dr. Wesch agree that the human animal is experiencing a somatic and psychological evolution at the hands of technology.  I imagine Ms. Terkle watching "The Machine is Us/ing Us" and agreeing wholeheartedly.  Terkle and Wesch differ in that she sees this as a problem to be rectified through a preservation of authentic interaction, read face-to-face conversation.  
    The debate is not without precedent or analogues.  Ms. Terkle would likely find kindred spirits in Alice Waters & Carlo Petrini and the Slow Food Movement.  Conversely, Mike Wesch probably gets excited by the work of Heston Blumenthal and those (however erroneously) associated with "molecular gastronomy."  Air conditioning vs. front porches, distance learning vs. "in-person" classes, Google Wallet vs. writing a check - the opinion of each thinker can be extrapolated to understand their likely position on each.  
    Ms. Terkle makes an interesting point about the more obvious examples of human attempts at conversation with technology.  The interaction of a pensioner with a toy is pitiful in her eyes, and if only those misguided Siri interlocutors would see it for what it is, they would see their place in the decline of whatever...  Radiolab covered this idea in an interesting episode called "Talking to Machines" wherein the hosts, with Ms. Terkle's help, relate the story of ELIZA, Joseph Weizenbaum's AI machine that he ultimately disowned as disingenuous.  Also mentioned in this episode is the more widely known Cleverbot, the inheritor of ELIZA's legacy.  
    In addition to refuting Wesch's claim that connection is relationship, Ms. Terkle also calls for a preservation and reappreciation of solitude, which for her is, "our ability to be separate and gather ourselves."  It would seem that this desire to be alone is opposed to her call for connectivity via conversation, but Terkle's self needs time alone in order to develop itself and prepare for human interaction in which the parties are encountering but not using each other, "...as spare parts to support our increasingly fragile selves."  "So our flight from conversation can mean diminished chances to learn skills of self-reflection," she says.  Terkle's vision of conversation necessitates the maturity of the self, both alone and together, and so she will be content with her Cape Cod dunes.