Overview

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.

Full Product Details

9798200095131

Table of Contents

Reviews

"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 Starred Review"" ""Merlington serves as an excellent narrator with a matter-of-fact tone and a keen sense for when to use a deliberate pace...[and] keeps a fine balance that will engage listeners."" -- ""AudioFile"" ""Perceptive...[Turkle] has spent decades examining how people interact with computers and other devices...and by situating her findings in historical perspective, she is able to lend contextual ballast to her case studies."" -- ""New York Times"" ""Turkle emphasizes personal stories from computer gadgetry's front lines, which 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 findings are engaging and her conclusions thoughtful (she's been called 'Margaret Mead in cyberspace')."" -- ""Library Journal"" ""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 (starred review)"""

Author Information

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. Laural Merlington is an audiobook narrator with over two hundred titles to her credit and a winner of multiple Earphones Awards. An Audie Award nominee, she has also directed over one hundred audiobooks. She has performed and directed for thirty years in theaters throughout the country. In addition to her extensive theater and voice-over work, she teaches college in her home state of Michigan.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available