Science in the Triangle

How many people do you know who see a shrink? Marriage counseling, anger management, alcohol addiction. Therapists help identify and work through problems people have with others or themselves. Real-life problems. But what about virtual-life problems?

The Internet is a technology that is transforming the way we work, live and play one cell phone text, one tweet, one Facebook update at a time. When machines stop being mere tools and become companions, friends and emotional crutches, who do we call? The cybershrink.

For the second lecture in its seminar series on engineering, policy and society Thursday, N.C. State University called on a clinical psychologist and sociologist who is the original cybershrink: Sherry Turkle, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose research has focused on people’s relationship with technology, particularly computers, for more than 30 years.

When Turkle started her research, bright minds at MIT wondered how we would keep computers busy.

Turkle recalled a two-day brainstorming session in 1978 where researchers tried to come up with ways to use computers. Ideas included tax preparation and games, she said. “Somebody suggested calendar and was told it was a dumb idea. Now we know, once computers connected us, once we were tethered, they keep us busy. We’re their killer app.”

It’s probably safe to say that the dark side of the Worldwide Web, mobile networks and social media isn’t a topic that’s frequently explored among computer scientists, software engineers and gadget geeks working on the next generation of virtual technology or among researchers in biology and chemistry eager to use it.

Those who participate in this kind of discussion risk being called Luddites, especially in universities, which are among the most wired places on the planet.

Turkle is no Luddite and neither were the panelists who joined her as part of the NCSU seminar series, which is sponsored by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the College of Engineering, the Institute for Emerging Issues, the Kenan Institute for Engineering, Technology and Science and the science, technology & society program.

The Research Triangle area, home of open-source software company Red Hat and IBM’s cloud computing center and the East Coast hub of the U.S. gaming industry, has its own bright minds whose research deals with the way the Internet is affecting our everyday life.

Three of them joined Turkle on a panel following her presentation: Victoria Szabo, program director for information science and information studies at Duke University; David Roberts, assistant professor of computer science at NCSU and David Gruber, a doctoral student in communication, rhetoric and digital media at NCSU.

Together, they explored the good, the bad and the ugly of computer technology.

First, the good.

The good …

Computer technology has changed medicine, transportation, education, business, politics and the flow of information. It has the potential to make us faster, smarter, more productive and more powerful, regardless of where we are, who we are and how much money we have.

It has brought about whole new industries.

Internet advertising already generates more than $25 billion in sales per year and mobile advertising $1.6 billion, Roberts said. And ever more remote areas are getting connected.

Just a week ago, CNN reported the Internet is now available on Mount Everest. As proof, Roberts showed a photo he received from a colleague standing next to a rock at the Mount Everest base camp. She took the photo with her mobile phone and sent it to him.

The next frontier? According to Roberts, it’s your living room as Google TV combines television, the Internet, apps and a way to search across all of them.

Instead of trying to break free of the tethering, Roberts suggested we use it to our benefit. Examples he named were the Mannahatta Game, which allows players to trace Manhattan’s history by walking the streets with an iPhone, or the UbiFit Garden, mobile technology that encourages users to exercise.

But even Roberts nodded in agreement when Turkle suggested universities de-wire some, especially to prevent students from cruising the Internet and texting on their mobile phones while they should be listening to a lecture. Both agreed that the ability to multitask bears some of computer technology’s rather negative consequences.

… the bad …

Szabo said she’s glad blogging and texting are emphasizing writing. Computer technology allows people to share real-life experiences with others online. It’s this content that keeps interest in technology high, she said.

Without content as added value, interest in technology wanes, Szabo said. That’s why Second Life, a computer-based virtual world built by Linden Lab, is losing money.

Educators at local universities and some schools extensively use Second Life as a teaching tool. Szabo said she manages three Second Life islands as part of her job at Duke, but she’s not going to pay twice as much rent for the land now that Linden Lab will remove the 50 percent discount for nonprofits and educators.

For Turkle virtual worlds like Second Life are places where our vulnerabilities are on display. We make our avatars, our virtual alter egos, thinner, younger and better looking and we dress them better than our real selves, she said.

At MIT, some of her colleagues even list the names of their Second Life avatars on their business cards.

Computer technology’s potential to expose vulnerabilities concerns Turkle in particular when it involves adolescents, the generation that grew up with the Internet and the mobile phone. For adolescents, the Internet is the perfect personality workshop at a time when they are looking for a place to experiment, she said.

They reach out for attention but instead get the illusion of companionship, Turkle said. “It’s the new state of hiding, We’d rather text than talk.”

Unplugged, they feel isolated, she said. When they’re plugged, in they feel overwhelmed by hundreds of text messages they receive on their mobile phones and by having to constantly update their Facebook pages.

“The point is not to denigrate the good,” Turkle said. “It’s to get a grip of what technology can offer us.”

Without that grip, computer technology can rear its ugly head.

… and the ugly

After interviewing adolescents for 15 years, Turkle brought some anecdotes to share.

Teens who slept with their mobile phones as if the devices were phantom limbs. The 16-year-old boy who told her that he looks for a pay phone that takes coins whenever he wants to make sure his call remains private. And then there was the young woman with the thumb splints, who opened the door painfully texting on her mobile phone. Turkle asked to see her flatmate and the young woman, rather than walk a few feet and knock on her flatmate’s door, preferred the pain and texted her.

The risks of computer technology’s seductiveness prompted Gruber to wonder about what’s not changing despite the broad-ranging influences of the Internet, mobile phones and social media.

It’s an interesting thought.

By focusing more on what stays the same, it might become clearer whether computer technology merely puts on display and exaggerates existing societal weaknesses, or whether it creates them.

It might also provide a clue to who’s in charge, people or machines.