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 wondering how much she cherry-picked examples, giving us only Thoreauvian teens craving wilderness and solitude, or longing for their parents to put down their BlackBerries.

That said, she does effectively problematize a clear cultural trend for more attenuated contact with other people, and the role played by technology in enabling us to maintain a screen between ourselves and others.