Table Of Contentalone
together
W h y W e e x p e c t M o r e f r o m
T e c h n o l o g y
a n d L e s s f r o m e a c h o t h e r
sherr y
turkle
alone together
turkle
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F
acebook. twitter. second Life. “smart” phones.
robot pets. robot lovers. thirty years ago
we asked what we would use computers for.
Now the question is what don’t we use them for. Now,
through technology, we create, navigate, and carry out
our emotional lives.
We shape our buildings, Winston churchill argued,
then they shape us. the same is true of our digital
technologies. technology has become the architect of
our intimacies. online, we face a moment of temptation.
Drawn by the illusion of companionship without the
demands of intimacy, we conduct “risk free” affairs on
second Life and confuse the scattershot postings on
a Facebook wall with authentic communication. and
now, we are promised “sociable robots” that will marry
companionship with convenience.
technology promises to let us do anything from
anywhere with anyone. But it also drains us as we try to
do everything everywhere. We begin to feel overwhelmed
and depleted by the lives technology makes possible. We
may be free to work from anywhere, but we are also
prone to being lonely everywhere. In a surprising twist,
relentless connection leads to a new solitude. We turn
to new technology to fill the void, but as technology
ramps up, our emotional lives ramp down.
Alone Together is the result of MIt technology and
society specialist sherry turkle’s nearly fifteen-year
exploration of our lives on the digital terrain. Based
on interviews with hundreds of children and adults, it
describes new, unsettling relationships between friends,
lovers, parents, and children, and new instabilities in
how we understand privacy and community, intimacy
and solitude. It is a story of emotional dislocation,
of risks taken unknowingly. But it is also a story of
hope, for even in the places where digital saturation is
greatest, there are people—especially the young—who
are asking the hard questions about costs, about checks
and balances, about returning to what is most sustaining
about direct human connection. at the threshold of
what turkle calls “the robotic moment,” our devices
prompt us to recall that we have human purposes and,
perhaps, to rediscover what they are.
(continued on back flap)
(continued from front flap)
sherry turkle is the abby rockefeller
Mauzé professor of the social studies of science and
technology at MIt, the founder and director of the MIt
Initiative on technology and self, and a licensed clinical
psychologist. she is the author of The Second Self and
Life on the Screen, with which Alone Together forms a
trilogy. she lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
© peter Urban
$28.95 US / $35.00 CAN
author of The Second Self
and Life on the Screen
“No one has a better handle on how we are using material technology to transform our immaterial
‘self’ than sherry turkle. she is our techno-Freud, illuminating our inner transformation long before
we are able to see it. this immensely satisfying book is a deep journey into our future selves.”
—Kevin Kelly, author of What Technology Wants
“Alone Together is a brilliant, profound, stirring, and often disturbing portrait of the future by america’s
leading expert on how computers affect us as humans. she reveals the secrets of ‘Walden 2.0’ and tells us
that we deserve better than caring robots. Grab this book, then turn off your smart phones and absorb
sherry turkle’s powerful message.”
—RosabeTh Moss KanTeR,
harvard Business school professor and author of Evolve!, Confidence, and SuperCorp
“sherry turkle is the Margaret Mead of digital culture. parents and teachers: If you want to understand
(and support) your children as they navigate the emotional undercurrents in today’s technological world,
this is the book you need to read. every chapter is full of great insights and great writing.”
—MiTchel ResnicK, LeGo papert professor of Learning research
and head of the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIt Media Laboratory
“Based on an ambitious research program, and written in a clear and beguiling style, this book will
captivate both scholar and general reader and it will be a landmark in the study of the impact of social
media.” —JillKeRconway, president emerita, smith college, and author of The Road from Coorain
“Alone Together is a deep yet accessible, bold yet gentle, frightening yet reassuring account of how
people continue to find one another in an increasingly mediated landscape. If the net and humanity
could have a couples therapist, it would be sherry turkle.”
—Douglas RushKoff,
author of Program or Be Programmed
“sherry turkle has observed more widely and thought more deeply about human-computer
relations than any other scholar. her book is essential reading for all who hope to understand our
changing relation to technology.”
—howaRDgaRDneR,
hobbs professor of cognition and education, harvard Graduate school of education
Alone Together
0465010219-Turkle_Layout 1 11/1/10 12:24 PM Page i
also by sherry turkle
Psychoanalytic Politics
The Second Self
Life on the Screen
Evocative Objects (Ed.)
Falling for Science (Ed.)
The Inner History of Devices (Ed.)
Simulation and Its Discontents
0465010219-Turkle_Layout 1 11/1/10 12:24 PM Page ii
Sherry Turkle
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
New York
alone together
Why We Expect
More from Technology
and
Less from Each Other
0465010219-Turkle_Layout 1 11/1/10 12:24 PM Page iii
Copyright © 2011 by Sherry Turkle
Published by Basic Books,
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
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