“Human relationships are rich; they’re messy and demanding.” So says Sherry Turkle in her New York Times article “The Flight from Conversation” (Apr 22 2012).

And with technology they can be pretty funny:

(grabbed from The Huffington Post who got it from Reddit)

 Turkle continues:

We have learned the habit of cleaning them up with technology. And the move from conversation to connection is part of this. But it’s a process in which we shortchange ourselves. Worse, it seems that over time we stop caring, we forget that there is a difference.

We are tempted to think that our little “sips” of online connection add up to a big gulp of real conversation. But they don’t. E-mail, Twitter, Facebook, all of these have their places — in politics, commerce, romance and friendship. But no matter how valuable, they do not substitute for conversation. 

The key element of Turkle’s critique is that with technology we have substituted: conversation with connection, presence with updates, patience with urgency, drinking with sipping, bodies with bots, reflection with “what’s on your mind”. She acknowledges there is a place for social media in many aspects of human life, but she argues that it’s actually usurping human life.

A core dimension of relational health is Directness.Assessing the relational impact of any human artefact requires looking at the its impact on Directness between people or entities. Directness has encounter at one end of the spectrum, in which there is face to face contact with honesty and transparency and, at the other end, no contact. Greater levels of directness provide any relationship better opportunity to grow in depth, understanding, shared goals and mutual respect.

Technology’s impact is ambiguous. From the perspective of Directness, you can see how technology can establish and maintain a level of relationship between people or entities that might otherwise be impossible: a hand-written letter, albeit old technology, contributes to the relationships of loved ones, Presidents and Kings; Skype enables my nephew and I to see each other and talk even though we’re 12,000 miles away from each other and will unlikely be in each other’s presence for years. But if the ability to Skype stops me planning to fly to see my nephew, if a letter merely gives me information when what I want is a hug from my wife, then technology is potentially diminishing the relationship. A technology, in and of itself, can’t be said to be good or bad for us.

Zeynep Tufekci, in her commentary on Turkle’s article in The Atlantic, sees more in the research data to be optimistic about, particularly where technology seems to enable connection and sharing where there wasn’t any before. And I think she’s right to see “Social Media’s Small, Positive Role in Human Relationships”. But I think she does what Turkle criticizes, assumes that connection is enough, is okay with some ‘qualitative loss’ in the quality of human relationships (“but not as much as television!” so her argument goes), and hopes that social media will be “a counterweight to the ongoing devaluation of human lives” and overcome divisions brought about by the “vagaries of capitalism”  despite some uses of social media unavoidably being a factor in the devaluation and division itself.

Thinking Relationally about Technology: As I said almost every human artefact, every technology, can be used for good or ill. It’s usually the exercise of wisdom, an awareness of shared purposes, and an ethic rooted in love that helps us lean more towards the good. Thinking relationally means thinking specifically, about this relationship about the quality of this ‘connection’ (singular) –  husband/wife, manager/report, uncle/nephew, client/vendor etc., not the mere ability to form connections. Thinking relationally also means looking at how technology is used in specific relationships to build directness, over time, with mutual understanding and respect, towards shared goals.

Does this help you look at technology and your relationships differently? Let me know what is helpful and what questions you have!

In a future post I’ll review Turkle’s book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other