Sherry Turkle Knihy

Argues that today's digital culture is undermining relationships, creativity, and productivity, and pushes for the return of face-to-face interaction among people

"MIT psychologist and bestselling author of Reclaiming Conversation and Alone Together , Sherry Turkle's intimate memoir of love and work In this vivid and poignant narrative, Sherry Turkle ties together her coming-of-age story and her groundbreaking research on technology, empathy, and ethics. Growing up in post-war Brooklyn in a house filled with mysteries, Turkle searched for clues. She mastered the codes that governed her secretive mother's world. She learned never to ask about her absent scientist father. And never to use his name, her name. Empathy was her strategy for survival. Turkle's intellect and curiosity propelled her to the thresholds of defining cultural moments that became life-lessons: she practiced friendship at Harvard/Radcliffe at the cusp of co-education during the antiwar movement, mourned the loss of her mother in Paris as students returned from the 1968 barricades, and faced the extent of her ambition while fighting for her place in the academy as a woman at MIT. There, Turkle found turbulent love and chronicled the wonders of the new computer culture, even as she warned of its threat to our most essential human connections. The Empathy Diaries captures all this in rich detail--and offers a masterclass in finding meaning through life's work."-- Provided by publisher

"MIT psychologist and bestselling author of Reclaiming Conversation and Alone Together , Sherry Turkle's intimate memoir of love and work In this vivid and poignant narrative, Sherry Turkle ties together her coming-of-age story and her groundbreaking research on technology, empathy, and ethics. Growing up in post-war Brooklyn in a house filled with mysteries, Turkle searched for clues. She mastered the codes that governed her secretive mother's world. She learned never to ask about her absent scientist father. And never to use his name, her name. Empathy was her strategy for survival. Turkle's intellect and curiosity propelled her to the thresholds of defining cultural moments that became life-lessons: she practiced friendship at Harvard/Radcliffe at the cusp of co-education during the antiwar movement, mourned the loss of her mother in Paris as students returned from the 1968 barricades, and faced the extent of her ambition while fighting for her place in the academy as a woman at MIT. There, Turkle found turbulent love and chronicled the wonders of the new computer culture, even as she warned of its threat to our most essential human connections. The Empathy Diaries captures all this in rich detail--and offers a masterclass in finding meaning through life's work."-- Provided by publisher

Preeminent author and researcher Sherry Turkle has studied digital culture for over thirty years. While she has long been an enthusiast for its possibilities, she now investigates a troubling consequence: our tendency to avoid conversation in various aspects of life—work, home, politics, and love—opting instead for texts and emails that allow us to disengage. This shift has led to silent dinner tables where children compete with phones for parental attention and friends struggle to maintain conversations when few are looking up from their screens. At work, we retreat to our devices, despite the fact that informal conversations enhance productivity and commitment. Online, we often share only agreeable opinions, avoiding the real conflicts of public discourse. The need for conversation begins with self-reflection, which is endangered in an always-connected world where loneliness is seen as a problem technology should solve. This reliance on others for self-worth diminishes our empathy and relationships. The consequences of avoiding conversation are evident: it undermines democracy and business success, while fostering empathy, friendship, love, and learning in our personal lives. However, there is hope; Turkle's five years of research reveal that we can reclaim conversation, the most humanizing act we engage in, to address modern challenges. We possess everything we need to start—each other.

Technology has become the architect of our intimacies. Online, we fall prey to the illusion of companionship, gathering thousands of Twitter and Facebook friends, and confusing tweets and wall posts with authentic communication. But this relentless connection leads to a new solitude.

Argues that social-networking sites, companion robots and other technology are fueling disturbing levels of isolation and are causing humans to mistake digital communication for actual human connection. By the author of Simulations and Its Discontents.

For over two decades, Sherry Turkle has explored how technology shapes our private lives in landmark studies. In her latest work, she reveals her process of understanding how our creations influence our self-perception, combining the perspectives of memoirist, clinician, and ethnographer to craft an inner history of devices. The narrative covers a range of objects, from cell phones and video poker to prosthetic eyes and dialysis machines. Turkle advocates for an "intimate ethnography" that questions conventional beliefs. One personal computer owner expresses a profound connection, stating, "This computer means everything to me. It's where I put my hope." This prompts Turkle to shift her inquiry from how computers are used to what makes them so deeply meaningful. The work invites readers to listen for deeper insights, presenting stories of an American student reconciling her identities through a cell phone used in Japan, a patient using email to navigate her relationship with her therapist, and a compulsive gambler who prefers the unpredictability of video poker. Through these narratives, we uncover untold stories and recognize that conventional wisdom often falls short in capturing the complexities of our interactions with technology.

-Unsere Gesellschaft postuliert bis heute den in sich zentrierten Menschen mit einer klar erkennbaren Persönlichkeit, einem Wesen, einem Charakter. Das entspricht nicht unserer Natur. Das Internet bietet jede Menge Selbsterfahrung, und eine wichtige Einsicht ist: Ich bin viele.-

¿Hemos sacrificado la conversación por la conexión? Estamos sumidos en la cultura digital y en un estado de constante conexión. Hemos desarrollado afición por las interacciones sociales virtuales dentro de los ámbitos del trabajo, la familia, la amistad, la educación y las relaciones sentimentales, sin advertir el peligro que ello comporta. Casi sin darnos cuenta, hemos abandonado la conversación cara a cara. Sherry Turkle, la principal especialista en la interacción entre las nuevas tecnologías y el ser humano, analiza en este libro las desastrosas consecuencias de la pérdida de la conversación que hemos experimentado en los últimos años, que hace peligrar lo que nos define como seres humanos. En defensa de la conversación es una cautivadora apología del valor fundamental de las conversaciones cara a cara en todos los ámbitos de nuestra vida y una llamada a recuperar el terreno perdido.