Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other - Softcover

Sherry Turkle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0465031463 ISBN 13: 9780465031467

Publisher: Basic Books, 2013

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 this title

Review:

PRAISE FOR THE PREVIOUS EDITION:
"[T]his incisive, challenging pop-psychology look at the behavioral effects of social networking on human relationships [has] made a bona-fide pundit out of M.I.T.'s Turkle."
-Vocativ.com
"Highly recommended."
-Management Issues

PRAISE FOR THE HARDCOVER:
"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 Magazine
"Savvy and insightful."
-New York Times
"[Turkle] summarizes her new view of things with typical eloquence... fascinating, readable."
-New York Times Book Review

"Highly recommended."
-Choice
"Despite her reliance on research observations, Turkle's emphasis on personal stories from computer gadgetry's front lines keeps her prose engaging and her message to the human species-to restrain ourselves from becoming technology's willing slaves instead of its guiding masters-loud and clear."
-Booklist
"Turkle's prescient book makes a strong case that what was meant to be a way to facilitate communications has pushed people closer to their machines and further away from each other."
-Publishers Weekly
PRAISE FOR THE PREVIOUS EDITION:

"[T]his incisive, challenging pop-psychology look at the behavioral effects of social networking on human relationships [has] made a bona-fide pundit out of M.I.T.'s Turkle."
-Vocativ.com

"Highly recommended."
-Management Issues

PRAISE FOR THE HARDCOVER:

"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 Magazine

"Savvy and insightful."
-New York Times

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

"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

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

"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

"Alarming...Turkle is not a luddite, nor is Alone Together a salvo in some analogue counter-reformation. But it does add to a growing body of cyber-sceptic literature."
-Observer (UK)

"Subtle and interesting."
-The Guardian (UK)

"Perhaps the world's leading authority on the impact of gadgetry on our lives... Turkle is brilliant-and brilliantly disturbing."
-Sunday Times (UK)


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

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

"A fascinating, insightful and disquieting 'intimate ethnography' of our digital, robotic moment in history."
-Natural History Magazine

"Worth talking about."
-History News Network

"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

"Readers will find this book a useful resource as they begin conversations about how to negotiate and critically engage the technology that suffuses our lives."
-National Catholic Reporter

"Turkle is a gifted and imaginative writer... [who] pushes interesting arguments with an engaging style."
-American Prospect

"Alone Together offers a wealth of information about the numerous uses being made of new technologies."
-Futurist

"A thorough look at how devices affect our relationships by a psychologist with decades in the field... lucid, well-written analysis."
-Bloomberg BusinessWeek, 4-star review

"Disturbing. Compelling. Powerful."
-Seattle Times

"The picture that arises from [Alone Together] is not particularly comforting but it is always compelling and helps explain many behaviors one sees at play in society at large these days, especially among the young."
-Jewish Exponent

Book Description:

"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 humour, Turkle surveys the front lines of the social-digital transformation."-Lev Grossman, TIME

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0465031463
• ISBN 13: 9780465031467
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384