Consider Facebook—it’s human contact, only easier to engage with and easier to avoid. Developing technology promises closeness. Sometimes it delive...
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Sep 12, 2011
Brigid *Flying Kick-a-pow!*
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This book has become the laughing stock of Hampshire College. (Which, if you don't know, is the college I've recently started to attend.) The author's last name, Turkle, is now being used as a verb all over campus. For example:
Two people are talking face-to-face. One person, while in conversation with the other person, takes out a phone (or other such electronic device) and starts texting. This person is Turkling.
There's also the Awkward Turkle––which is when you do the More...
Two people are talking face-to-face. One person, while in conversation with the other person, takes out a phone (or other such electronic device) and starts texting. This person is Turkling.
There's also the Awkward Turkle––which is when you do the More...
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Feb 14, 2012
MG
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Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other by MIT professor Sherry Turkle is one of the most enlightening books about the ethical and social repercussions of technology I have ever read. Interestingly, I read it on my Kindle, where I recently learned how to use the highlighting and notes function. So my review isn't so much a review as a reflection on some of the most meaningful quotations from the work.
The first half of the work is devoted to Turkle' More...
The first half of the work is devoted to Turkle' More...
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Aug 04, 2011
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. Consider the difference between having friends and being "friended" and for too many it is the difference between getting what you want and getting what we think we want. The book does a gr
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Feb 20, 2012
Gary
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This is one of those books that tries to shed some light on what effects pervasive communications, robot companions, and social networking are having on society. I think we're meant to think that this stuff is inherently flawed, and I don't know if that's the case or not, but as I read the well-described examples and case studies, I couldn't help wondering if it wasn't too early in the technology life-cycles for these things to pass judgment.
I was surprised to read about Eliza in t More...
I was surprised to read about Eliza in t More...
Mar 25, 2011
Daniel
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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 website and came to the realization that my life was unchanged because of it. So when I learned that someone had written something of a psychoanalytic profile on the website's effects on our da
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Jul 19, 2011
Simone
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Thank you NPR for always adding things to my "to-read" list. I picked up this book at the library after listening to this RadioLab episode on machines. It's hard to write a review or summary of this book. For sure it's really interesting, but it's also really dense. There are a lot of really similar academic examples. The book definitely shows a thoroughness of research. There are also so many moments that had me going - yes, yes, yes.
I'm a huge fan of the internet and More...
Aug 12, 2011
Sara Marie
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I agree with much of what's been said about this book feeling like two separate ones. I held out, waiting for the conclusion to do the heavy lifting to tie the robots and the communications technology sections together, but the hand waving and smoothing over did little more than to further apologize for the disjuncture as admitted in the introduction.
I like that Turkle has the confidence to take a critical turn here. Though some have described the shift to be it to be pessimistic, i More...
I like that Turkle has the confidence to take a critical turn here. Though some have described the shift to be it to be pessimistic, i More...
Mar 23, 2011
Connie
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Sherry Turkle has some serious bona fides - she's been studying how technology affects us for decades at MIT and this is her third book on this subject. Her research for this book seems extremely thorough. Alone Together has a long (good) introduction and the remainder is split into two parts: The Robotic Moment, about robots and robotic devices, and Networked, about more common internet-based technology such as email, texting, Facebook, Second Life, etc. I confess I skipped the robot sectio
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Feb 16, 2011
Kelly
rated it:
Sherry Turkle mixes together personal anecdotes, professional research, and philosophical rumination to address the link between technology and human relationships. In the first half of the book, Turkle draws on her work with three successive generations of children to examine the consequences of increased robotic integration on both childhood development and eldercare. The second half of the book tackles how cellular and online social networks are shaping our individual and collective psycholog
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Aug 28, 2011
Ashley
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This was a great book with a great message - it is split almost evenly between (1) robotics and (2) connectivity. An abridged version of this book should be required reading for anyone who is impacted by technology.
Quotable moments:
- I'm done with smart machines. I want a machine that's attentive to my needs. Where are the sensitive machines?
- Zhu Zhus are designed to be loved; in Chatroulette, people are objectified and quickly discarded...we seem determined to give huma More...
Quotable moments:
- I'm done with smart machines. I want a machine that's attentive to my needs. Where are the sensitive machines?
- Zhu Zhus are designed to be loved; in Chatroulette, people are objectified and quickly discarded...we seem determined to give huma More...
Aug 14, 2011
Zare
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Sherry Turkle's 1995 book "Life On The Screen" was in no small part responsible for sparking my own interest in the internet, computer-aided social networks, and the ways in which people relate to technology. As such, I was excited to read her analysis of more recent social and technological developments. "Alone Together" is divided into two parts, the first focusing on sociable robots (from Furbies to elder-care bots) and the second on the "always on" world of mobi
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Oct 08, 2011
Heather
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"Children have always competed for their parents' attention, but this generation has experienced something new. Previously, children had to deal with parents being off with work, friends, or each other. today, children contend with parents who are physically close, tantalizingly so, but mentally elsewhere. From the youngest ages, technology has been associated with shared attention...It is commonplace to hear children describe the frustration of trying to get the attention of their multitas
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Feb 27, 2011
John Carter
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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 Turkle's crankiness, she does have some excellent critical observations. Her methodology is somewhat troubling, though, relying on anecdote and case study. I found myself wo More...
Despite Turkle's crankiness, she does have some excellent critical observations. Her methodology is somewhat troubling, though, relying on anecdote and case study. I found myself wo More...
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Jul 31, 2011
Kera
rated it:
Sherry Turkle uses ethnography of sorts to explore our use of technology and how we are allowing it to change us. I was surprised, but later came to understand, her choice to dedicate the first part of the book exclusively to robots. Turkle thoroughly examined and wrote about the dangerous ways that use of robots can diminish human interactions or make us more likely to fear inherently complex and unpredictable human reactions. I especially enjoyed her points about robots being used with the e
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Sep 01, 2011
Heather
rated it:
The two stars I'm awarding this book are for effort. I would give it fewer, but I fear it disparages the amount of work the author clearly did to compile all her interviews.
This was the Hampshire College first year common reading for this summer, and I will be curious to see what my first year students say about the book tomorrow. I feel that the main problem of this book stems from a generation gap. We have an author trying to come to grips with an obsession with technology that, whi More...
This was the Hampshire College first year common reading for this summer, and I will be curious to see what my first year students say about the book tomorrow. I feel that the main problem of this book stems from a generation gap. We have an author trying to come to grips with an obsession with technology that, whi More...
Jun 07, 2011
Bill
rated it:
I stopped at Starbucks one afternoon before heading in to St Eth. There was a father there with his daughter. It was Norman Rockwell visits the 21st century. The young Dad seemed solid. She was 4-5 years old... as cute as could be. The two were interacting while he was in line for some coffee: a fine father-daughter afternoon out.
Well, he got his cuppa joe and then sat down with his daughter and... whipped out his iPhone, and the dude was gone. Zoned out. He started texting while his More...
Well, he got his cuppa joe and then sat down with his daughter and... whipped out his iPhone, and the dude was gone. Zoned out. He started texting while his More...
Feb 06, 2011
jen8998
rated it:
Interesting look at how people interact with technology. The first part examines people interacting with robots. Individuals interviewed in her book often describe interactions with robots as preferable to people as they take less time and require less vulnerability. Disturbed by this, Turkle turns her attention to social media (e.g. facebook, text message, IM, etc.). She points out that while these tools increase our communication with each other, they also decrease the quality of that commu
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Apr 24, 2011
George
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Turkle, an MIT professor and licensed clinical psychologist, has spent several decades studying the effects that technology has on us. In this third book, she splits her time between two areas -- "intelligent" robots and how humans relate to them both intellectually and emotionally; and social media and other forms of communication that have led to the modern always-connected lifestyle. Although Turkel is generally good at articulating her observations, she is definitely an academician
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Nov 02, 2011
Liam
rated it:
"I believe that in our culture of simlulation, the notion of authenticity is for us what sex was for the Victorians -- threat and obsession, taboo and fascination." (4)
"If they can give the appearence of aliveness and yet not disappoint, relational artifacts such as sociable robots open new possibilities for narcissistic experience." (56)
"Today our machine dream is to be never alone but always in control. This can't happen when one is face-to-fa More...
"If they can give the appearence of aliveness and yet not disappoint, relational artifacts such as sociable robots open new possibilities for narcissistic experience." (56)
"Today our machine dream is to be never alone but always in control. This can't happen when one is face-to-fa More...
Dec 19, 2011
Rob
rated it:
(8/10) It's hard to write a book baout technology without coming off as either a Luddite or a bright-eyed enthusiast, but Turkle more or less succeeds by focusing on not so much the technology itself -- companion robots and social networking -- but how it's used by an individualized world order to devalue people and reduce human relationships to something in your feed. It's a phenomena rarely discussed but easy to observe in the world around us. The Internet, which I fell in love with as a way
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Feb 16, 2012
Poppy
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I bought this book for the second half - on social media and its effects on human relationships - and so skipped the section on sociable robots. Perhaps I will go back and read this section later.
I was a little hesitant after reading the introduction - Turkle is a psychoanalytically trained psychologist, and I was afraid that her writing would be focused on completely unprovable psychoanalytic theories. However, her area of expertise only comes out in her insistence that it is human More...
I was a little hesitant after reading the introduction - Turkle is a psychoanalytically trained psychologist, and I was afraid that her writing would be focused on completely unprovable psychoanalytic theories. However, her area of expertise only comes out in her insistence that it is human More...
Mar 26, 2011
Just got a free copy of this. Turkle is one of the most important sociologists of technology but I'm afraid she's too is jumping on this Lanier- and Keen-driven technology is the end of civilization bandwagon. Hey, I'm all for critique but something about the moral championing of liberal individualism rubs me the wrong way. Kind of like when I read Marcuse. All of his analysis is super sharp, but then he veers towards what the ramifications of his analysis are...and then I begin violently skippi
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Mar 01, 2011
Dan
rated it: 
This one falls into the same trap as "God Is Not Great" by Christopher Hitchens: while I agree with the subject matter very much, after awhile I grew somewhat bored by it for that very reason. In this case, more so. Turkle's approach is very dry and academic. She is an instructor at MIT and it reads as such. The book is very easily broken down into introduction (explaining what she is going to cover), the two main sections (one on robots, one on social media and online/electronic inter
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Nov 14, 2011
Paul
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My reaction to this book is mixed as the book itself is mixed. Turkle seems to be walking a line between writing an academic book and one for the general public and in all reality this book could have and probably should have been split into two separate works. An editor could have easily cut 100 pages from the work. That said, there are many passages where Turkle strikes the chord and, I believe, authentically articulates the struggle our society is having at the intersection of the informat
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Sep 21, 2011
Uticapat
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There are a few too many assertions just sort of thrown out in this book for me to be entirely comfortable with its use in the classroom. Another problem with the text is that sometimes Turkle comes off like she's whining a little about "kids these days". That said, this book will give you a chance to talk about how our attitudes about and our use of technology are intertwined. More importantly, the text can open up a discussion of how technology has changed and will continue to cha
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May 02, 2011
Andrei
rated it:
A detailed tour of social robotics and networked identity and how their applicability tends to redefine the definitions of human and human empathy through the bidirectional paradigms of caring machines and virtual persona. Sherry Turkle may not provide all the answers, but she definitely raises the right questions and implicitly asks the reader to do the same, in what might be called an exemplified expression of the flesh and body self in the age of the digital other. Further causal insight migh
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Feb 24, 2011
Nathan
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Ok, so this is the first book I've given 5 stars to...that doesn't mean it is the best book ever written or anything like that. It's just that I can't recall a book freaking me out and making me ponder this deeply the things we are likely to see in our technological future, which is already here in many ways. Robotics, texting, social media, virtual worlds, etc. You could have fantastic book club discussions on these topics and they would likely challenge the ways many people have come to see o
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Feb 18, 2012
Hans
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This well researched book shows contain two large narratives. The first is how we are humanizing robots/machines through the recent advances in "social" robotics. The second is how we are dehumanizing each other in our virtual technology mediated relationships (think Facebook, Second Life, etc.). Turkle is a psychoanalyst and bring years of thinking about identity and the digital world into the book. The first part was more interesting to me as the concept of the "robotic moment"
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Mar 03, 2011
Kitsune0102
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Good set of reflections on the relationship and influence that man has on technology and vice versa. She makes many interesting points about the need to utilize technology (specifically robotics and social networking) in a more thoughtful and meaningful way. My only concern was that many of the opinions garnered for the book were based on interviews instead of more serious metrics, trends, scientific studies, etc. Otherwise an important work for people to read in the digital society. People
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Apr 13, 2011
Melissa
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Turkle has an excellent voice for academic reading. For this book, the content is more important than the composition, though. The first half of the book discusses robotics, particularly our relationships with robots and how they are expected to be used in the future. Presently, a significant train of thought is that robots will be caretakers for the very young and very old. A question asked by a 4th grader in the book basically summarizes my thoughts - don't we have people for that? The se
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