I aim to carve out a space for conversation:
Sherry Turkle, a clinical psychologist and sociologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has spent the past 30 years observing how people react and adapt to new technologies that change the way we communicate. In her latest book, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, Turkle argues that texts, tweets, Facebook posts, emails, instant messages, and snapchats—simultaneous, rapid-fire “sips” of online communication—have replaced face-to-face conversation, and that people are noticing the consequences. Over-reliance on devices, she argues, is harming our ability to have valuable face-to-face conversations, “the most human thing we do,” by splitting our attention and diminishing our capacity for empathy. Empathy is capacity to put yourself in the place of another person and imagine what they are going through.
My series entitled #Latina: Reclaiming the
Latina tag aims to create further dialogue outside of cyber space; Reclaiming the Latina Tag blog exists on the
social media Tumblr and the creator has encourages women to join her in taking
back the hashtag. In other words to post selfies of a non hypersexualized image
of what it truly means to be or look like a Latina. The goal of the blog is to
have a safe, respectful community for all Latina women on social media. The
blog also points out the diversity within the social construct of the word
Latino.
