The Humanity of Social Networking

In a recent article, MSN blogger Suzanne Choney discusses some observations that MIT professor Sherry Turkle makes in her new book "Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other." In the book, Turkle writes that all the interaction that people have with social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are taking away from time that would otherwise be spent interacting face-to-face with other people, and that such interaction makes us “less human.”

Without critiquing Professor Turkle (since I haven’t read her book yet) I did want to talk about this concept that too much social networking might somehow make us “less human.”  I’m always amused when someone attempts to define humanity: It is, of course, a moving target. What it meant to be human 1,000 years ago was different than what it means today; what it meant to be human 10,000 years ago was very different; what it meant 100,000 years ago, a million years ago or 10 million years ago graphically illustrates the inherent flaw in the analysis.  If our far-distant ancestors weren’t human (i.e., “like us”) then what happens when we ourselves aren’t “like us” anymore? Are we more than human, less than human, or just differently human? And how much do you have to change to become “not human?” (It’s an interesting problem that science fiction writers have had forever: it’s nearly impossible to write a story from the perspective of “trans-humans” since no one knows what that might be (and if you think you do, how do you make their motivations understandable to mere humans?))

I would argue that technology has always taken time away from face-to-face interaction beginning with the written word. When writing was invented, people started to spend time reading instead of listening to other people tell stories; or they perhaps spent time writing rather than telling stories.  What that ultimately enabled, of course, was the broadening of the scope of impact one person could have on another.  Instead of just communicating with a small group of people in your immediate proximity, people had the ability to “speak to” and “listen to” other people from all over the world.  Indeed, writers could speak to people not yet born, and people could listen to people who had long since died.  Did that change what it meant to be “human?”  Now granted, if people spend their lives reading or writing exclusively, that certainly will have a detrimental impact on their other human interactions, which I suspect is likely the point of Professor Turkle’s book. 

Addiction to technology is certainly a common problem (particularly among introverts) but even if you are a socially awkward “nerd” you are still human (or so I assume).

It seems to me that the change in the way people interact through social networking is similar to the change most technology has had: it enables us to communicate in ways and with people that we otherwise would not. But the fundamental “human” element of communication is still there.

Now when we all start communicating telepathically, we’ll have to talk. (An interesting question: if we evolved telepathic abilities vs. invented them via technology, would either change the definition of what it meant to be “human?”)