Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0465031463 ISBN 13: 9780465031467

Publisher: Basic Books, 2012

Technology has become the architect of our intimacies. Online, we fall prey to the illusion of companionship, gathering thousands of Twitter and Facebook friends, and confusing tweets and wall posts with authentic communication. But this relentless connection leads to a deep solitude. MIT professor Sherry Turkle argues that as technology ramps up, our emotional lives ramp down. Based on hundreds of interviews and with a new introduction taking us to the present day, Alone Together describes changing, unsettling relationships between friends, lovers, and families.

About the Author:

Sherry Turkle is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT and the founder and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Review:

PRAISE FOR THE PREVIOUS EDITION:

"[T]his incisive, challenging pop-psychology look at the behavioral effects of social networking on human relationships [has] made a bona-fide pundit out of M.I.T.'s Turkle."
-Vocativ.com

"Highly recommended."
-Management Issues

PRAISE FOR THE HARDCOVER:

"Nobody has ever articulated so passionately and intelligently what we're doing to ourselves by substituting technologically mediated social interaction.... Equipped with penetrating intelligence and a sense of humor, Turkle surveys the front lines of the social-digital transformation."
-Lev Grossman, Time Magazine

"Savvy and insightful."
-New York Times

"[Turkle] summarizes her new view of things with typical eloquence... fascinating, readable."
-New York Times Book Review

"What [Turkle] brings to the topic that is new is more than a decade of interviews with teens and college students in which she plumbs the psychological effect of our brave new devices on the generation that seems most comfortable with them."
-Wall Street Journal

"Turkle is a sensitive interviewer and an elegant writer."
-Slate.com

"Vivid, even lurid, in its depictions of where we are headed... [an] engrossing study."
-Washington Post

"In this beautifully written, provocative and worrying book, Turkle, a professor at MIT, a clinical psychologist and, perhaps, the world's leading expert on the social and psychological effects of technology, argues that internet use has as much power to isolate and destroy relationships as it has to bring us together."
-Financial Times

"Alarming...Turkle is not a luddite, nor is Alone Together a salvo in some analogue counter-reformation. But it does add to a growing body of cyber-sceptic literature."
-Observer (UK)

"Subtle and interesting."
-The Guardian (UK)

"Perhaps the world's leading authority on the impact of gadgetry on our lives... Turkle is brilliant-and brilliantly disturbing."
-Sunday Times (UK)


"Important.... Admirably personal.... [Turkle's] book will spark useful debate."
-The Boston Globe

"A fascinating portrait of our changing relationship with technology."
-Newsweek.com

"A fascinating, insightful and disquieting 'intimate ethnography' of our digital, robotic moment in history."
-Natural History Magazine

"Worth talking about."
-History News Network

"Amidst the deluge of propaganda, technophilia and idolatry that masquerades as objective assessment of digital culture, Turkle offers us galoshes and a sump pump.... [S]he gives a clear-eyed, reflective and wise assessment of what we gain and lose in the current configurations of digital culture."
-Christian Century

"Readers will find this book a useful resource as they begin conversations about how to negotiate and critically engage the technology that suffuses our lives."
-National Catholic Reporter

"Turkle is a gifted and imaginative writer... [who] pushes interesting arguments with an engaging style."
-American Prospect
"Alone Together offers a wealth of information about the numerous uses being made of new technologies."
-Futurist

"A thorough look at how devices affect our relationships by a psychologist with decades in the field... lucid, well-written analysis."
-Bloomberg BusinessWeek, 4-star review

"Disturbing. Compelling. Powerful."
-Seattle Times

"The picture that arises from [Alone Together] is not particularly comforting but it is always compelling and helps explain many behaviors one sees at play in society at large these days, especially among the young."
-Jewish Exponent

"Turkle... delivers a dark cautionary tale...Her unplug-before-it's-too-late message is stark enough to make you reach for a land line and call someone you love."
-Las Vegas Business Press

"Alone Together serves as an efficient... overview of the problems we confront in the digital age."
-Buffalo News

"A carefully researched and well-thought book."
-Deseret News
"No one has thought more deeply nor researched more thoroughly human-computer relations [than Turkle]. Her book Alone Together is an immensely satisfying read."
-Sherbrooke Record

"[A] must-read."
-Albany Times Union

"[Turkle's] interviews with teens and young adults who've grown up online are fascinating and her conclusions are provocative."
-Oregonian

"Alone Together, a book that could not have been written by a robot, presciently probes the question: will we be technology's willing slave or guiding master. Highly recommended reading."
-ETC: A Review of General Semantics

"Alone Together offers tremendous insight and eloquently qualifies longing for genuine, nurturing relationships in the network culture."
-Banana Moments

"Read Alone Together. And then talk about it with your colleagues, your students, and your friends-face-to-face."
-Continuing Higher Education Review

"Sherry Turkle has distinguished herself as an astute observer of the subjective side of the relationship between people and technology... Turkle does an excellent job of bringing out the important questions behind the technologies with which she deals... Turkle is an engaging writer, and her stories are interesting, accessible, and thought provoking."
-Journal of Technology, Theology, and Religion

"Alone Together effectively chronicles many of the psychological effects of modern technology and connectivity. Turkle illuminates the central themes of modern life: loneliness, control, communication, and image."
-Technology Uninhibited (blog)