Alone Together - Softcover

Turkle, Sherry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0465093655 ISBN 13: 9780465093656

Publisher: Basic Books, 2017

Synopsis

A groundbreaking book by one of the most important thinkers of our time shows how technology is warping our social lives and our inner ones
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 this title

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

"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

"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

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

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

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

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

"Savvy and insightful."
―New York Times

"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

"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

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0465093655
• ISBN 13: 9780465093656
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 400