Alone Together, Sherry Turkle
Alone Together, Sherry Turkle
2 Rating(s)
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Alone Together
Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other

Author: Sherry Turkle

Narrator: Laural Merlington

Unabridged: 14 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/10/2011


Synopsis

Consider Facebook—it's human contact, only easier to engage with and easier to avoid. Developing technology promises closeness. Sometimes it delivers, but much of our modern life leaves us less connected with people and more connected to simulations of them.

In Alone Together, MIT technology and society professor Sherry Turkle explores the power of our new tools and toys to dramatically alter our social lives. It's a nuanced exploration of what we are looking for—and sacrificing—in a world of electronic companions and social networking tools, and an argument that, despite the hand-waving of today's self-described prophets of the future, it will be the next generation who will chart the path between isolation and connectivity.

About Sherry Turkle

Sherry Turkle is the Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is frequently interviewed in Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and on media outlets including CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and NPR. A licensed clinical psychologist, she received a joint doctorate in sociology and personality psychology from Harvard University and is the author of several books, including Psychoanalytic Politics, The Second Self, Life on the Screen, and Simulation and Its Discontents. Sherry lives in Boston, Massachusetts.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Roger on January 02, 2020

Wow. Yeah. Can humans find companionship with robots? Should they? 2 years ago I would've thought the author was stretching for scify stories. After working at Verizon and seeing the disproportionate emotional responses people give when their device doesn't work as expected i totally agree with her.......more

Goodreads review by Daniel on March 25, 2011

This is the second book of my "The Dangers of New Technologies" series of book reviews. I decided to read Sherry Turkle's Alone Together after reading an article in Slate about it. When I started working in an office that blocked Facebook, I stopped spending unnecessary amounts of time on the websit......more

Goodreads review by Audrey on March 03, 2017

If I had to pick two descriptors for this book, I'd say "thought-provoking" and "stone-cold chilling." As for the first part of that, I found myself alternately highlighting brilliant pieces and writing counterpoints in the margins. By the end, though, I was swayed to her way of thinking: that in ou......more

Goodreads review by John Carter on February 27, 2011

A mixed bag. Turkle's overall tone, despite her constant denials of Luddism, is one of "Get off my lawn!," of cranky alienation from digital culture. There's too much of "the technology I grew up with is natural and human; the technology of Kids These Days is causing a parade of horrors." Despite Tur......more

Goodreads review by K on February 17, 2013

Hmmm. Fascinating concept. Copiously researched. Boring as all hell. Okay, just kidding. A cheap effort to get the attention of all my on-line friends out there with whom I apparently have these illusory relationships (and, perhaps, feel pressure to serve up charming and witty sound bytes that I'm le......more