“Can You Hear Me Now?” by Sherry Turkle discusses the ways that our society has become dependent on technology and the ways it has changed us since the late 1990’s. Turkle recalls speaking to people about the seemingly inevitable “Blackberry revolution,” where the overall consensus was that all of the downtime that people were looking for from their technology was not downtime at all, but rather people did not have any time to themselves to think. The technology that keeps us connected to everyone around the world has made it so that we can work from anywhere, freeing us from a tethered life, but holding us captive to our BlackBerry devices. Turkle brings up five points that trouble her concerning this dependence. Firstly, she describes the way that people can now blend into society through technology with the use of virtual identities and avatars, creating an alternate life, full of virtual relationships, responsibilities, and material items. The BlackBerry or other smartphone PDAs have become a necessity in our lives, but more importantly they have become a part of our selves and Turkle writes about the distress that one goes through when their technology crashes. The next point made is how children are affected by their cell phones, acting as a security blanket and making it so that they are never truly alone or independent. Technology has created the idea that privacy has ceased to exist, but no one really cares as long as they are not doing anything wrong. This idea has put people under certain obedience and allows others to view one’s personal life with open arms. Lastly, Turkle speaks of how everything around us is becoming less real, as we speak to synthetic voices on the phone and would almost prefer a robot to a living, breathing organism because we do not feel the need to attach emotion to these things. This essay shows the two faces of technology and how its effects are shaping our generation.