Sherry Turkle responds to group

For me, things get most exciting when what is happening in the virtual connects in a direct way with the physical real . . . I think this is why the movement that began with the Dean "meet ups" and morphed into the Obama effort to make a virtual campaign be a representation, neighborhood by neighborhood of what could happen face-to-face was so arresting. It necessarily could not take virtuality as the final goal. It always had to had in mind the translation of virtual to physical real.

I have been interviewing teens for many years now on virtual experience and there is a sense that experiences on the net can be sufficient unto the day. One feels as though (and feelings count!) one has connections, that one is expressing one's opinion and engaging collaboratively. These feelings are very strong and can be emotionally sustaining. But this online activity, for many people (not for all and the exceptions are important -- there are exciting efforts to harness online activities for political and social action) can feel like a lot. And can feel like all one has time for.

The time issue is important. We give ourselves more and more to do, especially online, and then look to technology to lighten our load. But then, email, maintaining a virtual presence and so forth, becomes ever more a job in itself. Some of the reason people do less of the screen is that they come to see what they have in front of them on the screen as a first priority to deal with. People talk about getting "rid" of their emails. We turned to connectivity to give us more time, but then many end up serving what their devices put before them. I should say that teens, of course, do not email. I use email as a metaphor for online connection. What takes their time is Facebook messaging and texting. Texting can make you feel very connected . . . but here, it may be a technology maximized for accomplishing the rudimentary.

We are drawn, always, to what technology offers, to what it makes easy. What it currently makes easy does not necessarily provide as much emotional sustenance as we might wish, or rather, we come to see what we can have online as the relationships we can have. And we come to see the social action we can have online as the politics we can have.