A directora da MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, Sherry Turkle – cujo título mais conceituado é Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (originalmente publicado em 1995) – deu uma curta mas muito carregada entrevista à New Scientist onde retoma uma das suas ideias transversais, a dos efeitos socialmente negativos da existência virtual:
For some people, things move from “I have a feeling, I want to call a friend” to “I want to feel something, I need to make a call”. In either case, what is not being cultivated is the ability to be alone and to manage and contain one’s emotions. When technology brings us to the point where we’re used to sharing our thoughts and feelings instantaneously, it can lead to a new dependence, sometimes to the extent that we need others in order to feel our feelings in the first place.
Our society tends toward a breathless techno-enthusiasm: “We are more connected; we are global; we are more informed.” But just as not all information put on the web is true, not all aspects of the new sociality should be celebrated. We communicate with quick instant messages, “check-in” cell calls and emoticon graphics. All of these are meant to quickly communicate a state. They are not meant to open a dialogue about complexity of feeling. Although the culture that grows up around the cellphone is a “talk culture”, it is not necessarily a culture that contributes to self-reflection. Self-reflection depends on having an emotion, experiencing it, taking one’s time to think it through and understand it, but only sometimes electing to share it.
Perante muito do tecno-optimismo que encontramos (e que parece espalhar-se como um vírus) as palavras de Turkle até farão sentido. Terão, no mínimo, a capacidade de nos deixar em estado de alerta permanente.
Mas importará também (o tal estado de alerta permanente) não cair no extremo oposto e, a esse propósito, recomenda-se a leitura do texto crítico de Julio Meneses Naranjo.
Encontrei a sugestão no blog de Adolfo Estalella.
