Hit Send, Take a Bow

In theater terms, we are 'on' all the time, expected to give a performance by responding to every text, every IM, every scribble on the Facebook wall.
By ERIC FELTEN
JANUARY 18, 2011

Excerpt:
Teens may embrace the peculiar sociability that the wireless computer makes possible, Ms. Turkle says, but they do so with unease and ambivalence. To put it in theater terms, they are "on" all the time, expected to respond immediately to every text, every IM, every scribble on their Facebook walls. There is no escape from the pestering, nudging, hectoring, chattering demands of being connected. Many high-schoolers are more exhausted than exhilarated by their virtual lives. "I can't imagine doing this when I get older," says one student about the hours he devotes to meeting the demands of his online social life. "How long do I have to continue doing this?"

Students are also aware that the virtual life on the Web leaves a more thorough, durable and potentially problematic record than their meat-world existence. Conversations on the playground are of the moment, but chat with a pal via instant-messaging and he just might be archiving the exchange. Ms. Turkle talks with teens who realize, painfully, that they will never escape the indiscretions photographically memorialized on Facebook but who still can't imagine opting out of the social network.

Oddly, though students carry their cellphones everywhere, they aren't fond of talking on the phone. Text is the medium of choice, and it isn't just about convenience. It is a way of being guarded, of putting up a barrier so that honest reaction isn't revealed. the rest