These amended narratives are a kind of realtechnik. The realtechnik of connectivity culture is about possibilities and fulfillment, but it also about the problems and dislocations of the tethered self. Technology helps us manage life stresses but generates anxieties of its own. The two are often closely linked. They keep us busy. It is as though we have become their killer app. Aug 22, Amar Pai rated it it was ok Shelves: cursorily-skimmed. Who cares about Second Life.
Dec 03, Anna rated it really liked it Shelves: technology , nonfiction. I found 'Alone Together' hugely thought-provoking. The methods used are anthropological and grounded in the ideas of psychoanalysis, which made for an interesting change.
The specific points within each theme are introduced and explained through case studies. Most quantitative and some qualitative work regurgitates the assumptions of e I found 'Alone Together' hugely thought-provoking.
Most quantitative and some qualitative work regurgitates the assumptions of economics in a manner I find hugely frustrating. Nonetheless, it is important to study how rapid changes in technology impact upon people. As I read it I could not help but evaluate the roles of the internet and mobile phones in my life and contemplate how I could establish different boundaries with them. The book begins with children and their interaction with robotic toys. I am of the generation that first experienced such things; I had an off-brand tamagotchi as a tweenager but never wanted a furby.
Those weird chattery things have always freaked me out. Turkle expounds on how very young children interact with these toys, at an age when they are still finding out how to categorise objects. To me it seems odd to contemplate that children try to understand whether a furby is alive like an animal, whether it has feelings, whether it can die. That was strange, but the section about elderly people interacting with robotic baby dolls and Paro the robot seal was heart-breaking.
In particular, the insight that the elderly people studied got much more from interactions with the researchers than the robots. The robots were better company than no-one, but not a substitute for real people. Turkle also confronts the social assumption that robots are needed to look after the elderly because young people cannot, for some reason.
The latter part of the book covers changes of communication patterns amongst presumably American teenagers and working age people. I found this eye-opening; how can anyone send hundreds of texts a day?! It takes a fairly negative approach to the always-connected ethic of smartphones, which I certainly agree with. It seems a little baffling to me that so many people keep them despite finding the attendant anxiety and obsessive behaviour upsetting.
Growing up with the assumption of constant connection by social networking and texting must be intensely stressful. It certainly made a pleasant change from the constant barrage of phone advertising. Why should it be strange to not want a smartphone? Constant connection to the internet is neither necessary nor desirable for every single person.
That said, I wonder to what extent I was convinced by the book because it espoused views that I already held. I am somewhat wary of psychoanalytical theory, as my efforts to gain a basic understanding of it have left me dubious.
I would have also liked the book to contain more evidence on the actual uptake of technologies and how it breaks down demographically, even if only for America. A few numbers here and there would have been nice. Moreover, the massive American bias of the whole thing is not actually mentioned. Although similar trends can be observed in other rich developed nations, most likely, the cultural and demographic contexts will definitely differ.
Which will change the impacts of technology, in no doubt very interesting ways. The book also raises, without delving into, the huge and difficult question of capitalism and authenticity. In the twenty-first century of multinational company-controlled neoliberal capitalism, what is authentic experience? Are texts and emails less authentic forms of communication than letters and face-to-face conversations?
If going out to a concert, film, or meal is punctuated by texting, tweeting, and posting photos online, do these attempts to capture the authenticity of the moment diminish it? I was at the cinema a few days ago and noticed at the edge of my vision a blue glow - someone was checking their phone in the middle of an exciting action film.
Just the awareness that someone was doing that distracted me from the film. When considering these massive, abstract questions about everyday material experience, it is always tempting to resort to anecdote, so I can sympathise with Turkle.
That said, it is not the case that people are freely adopting fancy new phones, tablets, etc in a neutral environment. These are extremely profitable products, pushed relentlessly upon us by massive companies using sophisticated marketing techniques. It is one of those things that can scarcely be put into words, yet you know it when you feel it. The main difficulty is that everyone surely experiences it differently. Then, when different people label an experience authentic or otherwise, the disagreement often takes an exclusionary tone of snobbery or trendiness.
It is also a snake that eats its own tail, as authenticity seems only available at incredibly high cost or for no money at all. What was once seen as new, original, and innovative is rapidly co-opted for profit and becomes mainstream, thus somehow its authenticity is degraded. Authenticity has itself become a commodity, likely by changing what the words means to people.
Which is practically impossible to pin down, making this tangent rather futile. Although it did remind me to think further about whether irony and authenticity are mutually exclusive. On a more pragmatic note, Turkle concludes with a set of personal anecdotes from which I inferred the need to find your comfort level with technology and re-negotiate a compact with it. She could perhaps have made this clearer, although doing so would not necessarily fit with the ethos of the book.
Anthropological case study-based methods do not lend themselves to generalisable policy proscriptions. During and after reading this book, though, I contemplated how I use my laptop, my phone, and social media and decided to make some tweaks. I was also reminded of the very frustrating inconsistency of my concentration levels. When reading a book, I can easily concentrate without interruption for three or four hours, basically until I get too hungry. My PhD work is all being done on a laptop, which is a total procrastination machine.
If I can read a book for so long, why is my concentration so pathetically poor with the internet just a click away? I would love to disconnect the wireless but cannot when so many of my research materials are online.
I love the internet, but do not feel adequately in control of my use of it. This worries me. May 01, Chris Witt rated it it was ok. I've struggled with how to review this, but here goes a half-assed attempt The first part deals with robotics. And it was awful. Everything reeks of a psychologist who has found exactly what she set out to find.
For example, it felt like she wanted to show that children are unable to tell the difference between human beings and electronic toys. So she interviews, say, of them. And if she finds one of them that confirms her theory, she devotes I've struggled with how to review this, but here goes a half-assed attempt And if she finds one of them that confirms her theory, she devotes a chapter to talking about how disconnected today's children are.
I don't know that I'm right about this, of course. I'm just saying that it really felt like her stories were way too fantastic to be the norm. I don't think she fabricated those stories. I just think that things feel a little cherry-picked. The second part of the book, however, was a bit more interesting. She deals with how human beings communicate in the modern world. Text, IM, Facebook, etc. I'd probably give 1 star to the first half of the book and 3 to the second.
For the last or so pages I was reading the book, I kept asking myself about it. The problem here is that things do change. As we get older, it's I think natural for people to start getting nostalgic about the "good old days" and seniors always seem to think that the world is going to hell. But I think they forget that the generation before them felt the same way.
As did the generation before them. And so forth. I'm not going to lie. I am a bit of a Luddite at times. I only recently got a smart phone. And I'm a year old who has worked in IT for 12 years now. I guess I'm contrary, or something. I do see the amazing advances being made in technology and often think "ya, but how is this affecting the way human beings interact with each other?
That stranger over there is wearing a Chicago Bears jacket. You're a Bears' fan and there was a big game yesterday afternoon. Why not ask them if they watched the game - see what they thought. Allow them to vent about a bad play or maybe reflect on the big win and bring a smile to somebody's day.
I'll just go back to checking my e-mail on my Blackberry To go back to an earlier mention, although I felt like she might have been cherry-picking examples for the purpose of writing a harder-hitting book, there are still some things that will stick with me awhile.
For example, the number of children who seemed disappointed at having parents who were not present in the moment with them. Instead of sitting down to dinner together or talking on the drive home from school or helping them out with a toy they are trying to figure out, their parents are off to the side with their faces turned towards the glow of some electronic device.
At its best, the book offers some good conversation starters. And maybe a chance for self-reflection. Something that our modern, post-wired world doesn't always afford. Dec 14, Lauren Ruth rated it really liked it. What a good book this is! Humane, filled with common-sense, and refreshing.
The writing is not graceful—it's a bit wordy, repetitive, occasionally ponderous. It's not as well-organized or tight as it could be, either—somewhat redundant in ideas as well as words. But these are minor quibbles compared to how well this book does on the two critical aspects of nonfiction: the importance of the topic, and the arguments and insights it offers. In these, it shines. The two main sections of Alone Together What a good book this is! The two main sections of Alone Together consider our engagements with first, robots and robotic toys; next, social networks.
Her argument can be summed up with this quote from the introduction: "we seem determined to give human qualities to objects and content to treat each other as things. Still, after decades of watching actors play androids, speaking lines written by screenwriters rather than assembled by programmers, it's useful to be reminded that, inside the hardware embodying Kismet, Cog, Paro, Furby, or your Tamagotchi, nobody's home.
You've been studied, and responses that elicit an emotional response from you have been programmed; that's all. What robots offer is is mimicry, not understanding. That we're so easy to fool speaks volumes about our willingness to be fooled. Are we really so lonely? Evidently, to go by the social networking discussions. Boy, am I glad that my adolescence encompassed merely LSD and assassinations, and my heart was free to break without the ceaseless need to groom my Facebook profile, or respond to text messages within ten minutes no matter what.
Not a new thought, but I had no idea how extreme matters have become. And I thought I knew about Second Life—ha! I'm haunted by the guy who tells Turkle, while watching his kids at the playground, that he starts his day by engaging his avatar in interactive sex animations with the avatar of a person he's never met, and probably never will.
And that this enables him to stay in his marriage. So bleak. I could go on—the book's stuffed with fascinating vignettes, well chosen and sharply drawn, to advance her argument— but you get the idea. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. But try telling that to enthusiastic, myopic, greedy, lonely, vulnerable us. Feb 06, Jane rated it really liked it Shelves: nonfiction-memoir , pop-psychology.
I've been feeling a becoming-less-vague dislike of social media and portable connectivity for a while now, but had chalked those up to Luddite impulses that I should get over.
This book has made me reevaluate whether those feelings are actually good. Things like my partner being on his phone constantly during meals I feel lonely , browsing aimlessly through Facebook and feeling more and more insecure about the image I get of other people's lives compared to my own, and wishing I kept in touch w I've been feeling a becoming-less-vague dislike of social media and portable connectivity for a while now, but had chalked those up to Luddite impulses that I should get over.
Things like my partner being on his phone constantly during meals I feel lonely , browsing aimlessly through Facebook and feeling more and more insecure about the image I get of other people's lives compared to my own, and wishing I kept in touch with more people by phone and letters.
These are all normal results of having the illusion of closer connections to people, when really they are elsewhere or only sharing an inauthentic version of themselves to the masses, rather than just me. It makes me want to quit FB. I'm not going to do that curiosity about people who are only there in my life , but I've started only logging on to check notifications and then getting out.
I think it's better for my brain. I've never got into Twitter and couldn't come up with a really good justification for why not; I'm just not interested. Now I realize that it's because while it would connect me to a lot of people, those would all be superficial connections to people who didn't actually care about me, might not be there tomorrow, and of whom I couldn't expect a whole lot.
I don't want followers; I want 10 friends that I talk to and see regularly. This book also made me think a lot about parenting, and how I hope my kid s don't grow up with the assumption that they have no privacy and no space to themselves without other people expecting them to respond.
Good lord; ten years ago I could spend a whole day out and about and only have pay phones to use! I don't want to be always on, always available. I don't want to be the parent that bans cell phones, and I also don't want to spend their adolescence constantly arguing about how I resist things that everyone else already does. It's too much for one person to fight. They'll learn manners by watching me.
View all 8 comments. Feb 25, Elizabeth rated it liked it Shelves: bookclub , book-bingo I will be thinking about it for a long, long time. I think it's important for individuals, families, and classrooms to really consider how best to incorporate the "always on" culture without losing what she calls sacred spaces, and the human values that we want to preserve. The first part of the book was very Furby-anecdote heavy. I know she has bee 3. I know she has been at this research for decades and wanted to provide some context, and I get that social robots are part of this brave new technological world we will live in, but I wanted to cry Furby Uncle there for a while.
I was also very interested in her methodology, her research questions and procedures, etc. I had the sense that she was mostly sharing the experiences of wealthy, white private school students this may or may not be true, but it's really hard to tell either way and I wondered if her research had been conducted throughout the U. It's still worth reading especially for educators and parents and essential for discussion, because the technological world will continue to change in ways we can't even imagine--better to be aware and involved than to be a pawn in those outcomes.
Jul 11, Alicia rated it it was ok Shelves: adult , science-fiction , politics-justice , historical , nonfiction , social-pysch , stem-nature. The concept for the story outweighed the excitement for reading it. In the vein of others that discuss how technology has pulled humans farther apart, Turkle, wants to add to that and heavily, heavily focuses on robots and their work now in companionship and love. She references studies and conversations with others scientists in the field and at conferences but it seems to go around in circles discussing the same thing over and over without really digging in.
It seemed surface and cyclical. Rel The concept for the story outweighed the excitement for reading it. Related, there weren't as many nuggets as Reclaiming Conversation to sit and think about though certainly there were a few evocative statements.
Ultimately, I expected more and my expectations didn't match the information shared in the book, but that's not to say I'm not going to keep reading Turkle's others since Reclaiming Conversation was life-changing for me. May 07, Vivian rated it did not like it. I admit, I gave up on this book after about pages. For those of us over 40 45? While I agree with some of the concepts outlined in this book, I felt that the author was constantly looking for research or conducting her own to support her own preconceived ideas.
I had been looking forward to a somewhat original take on technology and society, but the beginning of the bo I admit, I gave up on this book after about pages. I had been looking forward to a somewhat original take on technology and society, but the beginning of the book was a rehash of old, tired opinions.
A disappointment. Dec 03, Jafar rated it it was ok. The first section deals with how we perceive and interact with robots and how this may develop in the future. The second section deals with how our networked lives that are supposed to keep us more connected may be going the other way. Turkle has done most of his research on teenagers.
Call me old, but I didn't like reading chapter after chapter about teenagers who sen The best things about the book are the titles of its two sections: 1 In Solitude, New Intimacies 2 In Intimacy, New Solitudes. Call me old, but I didn't like reading chapter after chapter about teenagers who send hundreds of texts a day and live their entire lives on Facebook.
Jul 15, Julia rated it liked it. Like my friend Jonathan McKay said, read the last chapter because it has some great quotes, and skip the first half of the book. I liked the repeated anecdotes about how technology influences our lives, so three stars instead of two. But the academic prose made me constantly feel like the author was lecturing me, like she thought she was better than me.
And it made me feel not so smart. Feb 22, Kaethe marked it as stricken. Any theory predicated on "hookup culture" is bound to be full of stupidity. A theory which says all teens eschew sentimentality, and deep emotions, but also that they all adore "Twilight"'s angsty schmaltz and tortuous love is, you know, not a good or useful theory. Jan 15, Dwight Davis rated it it was ok. Turkle is an expert in her field. But there are some glaring errors for me in this.
A few observations. Any book writing about technology is necessarily already out of date by the time it is published, and this book was published in Turkle spends a lot of time talking about MySpace and Furbies which, as far as I know, had both passed largely out of public consciousness by And this book, only 7 years old at this point, already feels like an antique.
This makes it overwhelmingly difficult to take this work seriously today. There are almost no anecdotes about how online culture and texting has positively built community, helped overcome issues of anxiety and depression and mental illness, or alleviated loneliness.
Turkle only identifies folks who feel disconnected and anxious because of texting and social media. This feels disingenuous to me. It looks part owl, part hamster and is programmed to respond to human attention. It has no intelligence, but it can fake attachment. In an intriguing psychological experiment, subjects are asked to take a Furby, a Barbie doll and a live gerbil and hold them upside down in turn.
The rodent writhes in obvious discomfort and people quickly release it. The Barbie doesn't react and can be inverted indefinitely. The Furby says "Me scared" in a convincingly infantile voice. People ignore the plea, but only for a few moments. They know the toy has no feelings, but the simulation is enough to provoke empathetic urges.
The test is one of many cited by Sherry Turkle in Alone Together as evidence that humanity is nearing a "robotic moment". We already filter companionship through machines; the next stage, she says, is to accept machines as companions.
Soon, robots will be employed in "caring" roles, entertaining children or nursing the elderly, filling gaps in the social fabric left where the threads of community have frayed.
Meanwhile, real-world interactions are becoming onerous. Flesh-and-blood people with their untidy impulses are unreliable, a source of stress, best organised through digital interfaces — BlackBerries, iPads, Facebook. This not a science-fiction dystopia.
Alone Together is the culmination of years of empirical research. Turkle has watched people interact with machines and socialise on digital networks. Her inquiry starts out clinical and becomes philosophical: can humanity transform the way it communicates without altering, at some level, what it means to be human? Plainly, technology is doing peculiar things to us. The average American teenager sends thousands of text messages every month, and spends hours each day on Instant Messenger, MySpace and Facebook.
Email, Turkle reports, is considered old-fashioned by most unders. None of these things existed a generation ago. Adults are matching the pace of digitisation set by their children, eking out proxy lives on blogs, in multi-player games and chatrooms. Millions of us appear to find simulations of life more alluring than life. We are training ourselves to fear a world unmediated by computers. 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: recent examples include Nicholas Carr's The Shallows , warning that our cognitive faculties decay as we skim distractedly from one webpage to another, and Evgeny Morozov's The Net Delusion , which rebuts fashionable notions of the web as a tool for advancing democracy. These are correctives to what Turkle calls the "heroic narrative" of the internet — the effusions of digital evangelists who confuse technological advance with human progress.
She describes a particular interaction between Miriam, an elderly woman living alone in a care facility and Paro, a sophisticated AI-powered robot designed to mimic the behaviour of a baby seal. On this occasion Miriam is particularly depressed because of a difficult interaction with her son, and she believes that the robot is depressed as well.
Miriam experienced an intimacy with another, but she was in fact alone. We are poised to attach to the inanimate without prejudice. They talk easily of robots that would be safe and predictable companions.
These young people have grown up with sociable robot pets which portrayed emotion, said they cared and asked to be cared for. We are psychologically programmed not only to nurture what we love but to love what we nurture. The book circles repetitively around these concerns, asking the question of how the new technologies are shaping us, and whether this is serving our human purposes.
We are thinking about the meaning of being alive, about the nature of attachment, about what makes a person. And then more generally we are rethinking, What is a relationship?
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