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Renowned media scholar Sherry Turkle investigates how a flight from conversation undermines our relationships, creativity, and productivity - and why reclaiming face-to-face conversation can help us regain lost ground.
We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.

Preeminent author and researcher Sherry Turkle has been studying digital culture for over thirty years. Long an enthusiast for its possibilities, here she investigates a troubling consequence- at work, at home, in politics, and in love, we find ways around conversation, tempted by the possibilities of a text or an email in which we don't have to look, listen, or reveal ourselves.

We develop a taste for what mere connection offers. The dinner table falls silent as children compete with phones for their parents' attention. Friends learn strategies to keep conversations going when only a few people are looking up from their phones. At work, we retreat to our screens although it is conversation at the water cooler that increases not only productivity but commitment to work. Online, we only want to share opinions that our followers will agree with - a politics that shies away from the real conflicts and solutions of the public square.

The case for conversation begins with the necessary conversations of solitude and self-reflection. They are endangered- these days, always connected, we see loneliness as a problem that technology should solve. Afraid of being alone, we rely on other people to give us a sense of ourselves, and our capacity for empathy and relationship suffers. We see the costs of the flight from conversation everywhere- conversation is the cornerstone for democracy and in business it is good for the bottom line. In the private sphere, it builds empathy, friendship, love, learning, and productivity.

But there is good news- we are resilient. Conversation cures.

Based on five years of research and interviews in homes, schools, and the workplace, Turkle argues that we have come to a better understanding of where our technology can and cannot take us and that the time is right to reclaim conversation. The most human-and humanizing-thing that we do.

The virtues of person-to-person conversation are timeless, and our most basic technology, talk, responds to our modern challenges. We have everything we need to start, we have each other.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• The Case for Conversation
• The Empathy Diaries(p. 3)
• The Flight from Conversation(p. 19)
• 1 Chair
• Solitude(p. 59)
• Self-Reflection(p. 79)
• 2 Chairs
• Family(p. 103)
• Friendship(p. 137)
• Romance(p. 177)
• 3 Chairs
• Education(p. 211)
• Work(p. 249)
• The Path Forward
• The Public Square(p. 293)
• The Nick of Time(p. 317)
• A Fourth Chair?
• The End of Forgetting(p. 337)
• Acknowledgments(p. 363)
• Notes(p. 367)
• Index(p. 417)

Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics

Library Journal Review

"Put down that cell phone and reclaim conversation!" demands Turkle (social science, Massachusetts Inst. of Technology; Alone Together). Her main points are that conversation is solitude, listening, mentoring, deep reading, and multitasking, and conversation makes us happier, more empathetic, and less lonely. She argues that texting and social media displace and distract us from authentic communication, supporting her message with poignant vignettes, which ultimately cannot establish that lives of endless, Internet chatter are universal. Recent studies by Wikia and the Pew Research Center have shown that not all teens are "plugged in" or message constantly. Even Turkle's own stories feature conversations gone awry. A young man storms out angrily, and a middle school principal sadistically interrogates a student. Worse yet, she offers few solutions. Turkle advocates "sacred spaces" and changing cell phones' "affordances" but fails to mentions apps that temporarily block distractions. Those who enjoy social science and Internet critiques can also read Andrew Keene's Digital Vertigo or Marc Prensky's Brain Gain, while those interested in better conversation can try Susan Scott's Fierce Conversation. Verdict For Turkle fans only. Everyone else can do better.-Eileen H. Kramer, Georgia Perimeter Coll. Lib., Clarkston © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Turkle argues that digital technology reduces people's ability to have deep and meaningful face-to-face conversations, which are essential for the many connections in life, business, and love. She explores different problems and strategies through anecdotes and research that can help people navigate the demands of technology and real-world interactions. Potter presents Turkle's words with a natural and wholehearted delivery. She teases out subtleties in the text, and casts quotes from outside sources and short bouts of dialogue in relief. A Penguin Press hardcover. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

CHOICE Review

Turkle (social studies of science and technology, MIT, and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self) has spent the last three decades studying the junctions between human behavior and technology. A psychologist by training, she has written several books that offer scientifically rigorous yet humanistic analyses of human-computer interaction, among them Alone Together (CH, Aug'11, 48-7239). In the present volume, Turkle examines the possible dehumanizing effects of technology (effects she originally asserted in Alone Together) as evidenced in media-based communication. She claims that the propensity to use technology to communicate remotely in disjointed chunks, such as in texting, rather than in rich, protracted, deep conversations has the potential to shut down the ability to truly connect with others and engage in deep thinking. A longtime proponent of the beneficial possibilities of technology, Turkle supports her criticisms with examples of well-documented behaviors--such as unwillingness to engage, as one reaches for a smartphone at the first sign of boredom or interpersonal conflict. This book is a timely and important contribution to media studies and communication theory. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. --Susan M. Frey, Indiana State University

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* The modern world is one of paradox, writes MIT professor, clinical psychologist, and prominent writer Turkle (Alone Together, 2011). Technology has enabled humans to become the most resourceful, resilient, and rewarded beings in history, yet many of us appear to lack the social and linguistic abilities to successfully navigate even the most basic situations. What has been compromised in the digital age is the ability to relate. E-mails, texts, instant messages, and social media have afforded myriad methods by which to connect, but at the expense of the ability to converse. These are ways to share information but not ideals, means of reaching out to but not truly touching someone else. As a result, people are losing the ability to empathize, to talk beyond the most superficial level, to develop deeper understandings of ourselves and our place in the larger world, one that seems to have shrunk to the size of a phone or computer screen. From the kitchen table to the classroom and office, these electronic devices dictate how humans interact. Knowing how and when best to use them can make the difference between meaningful communication and meaningless encounters. There's a wealth of relevant information and revealing insights on every page as Turkle provocatively takes us to the use it or lose it communications precipice.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2015 Booklist

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

SHERRY TURKLE has spent the last 30 years studying the psychology of people's relationships with technology. She is the Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT. A licensed clinical psychologist, she is the founder and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. Turkle is the author five books and three edited collections, including a trilogy of three landmark studies on our relationship with digital culture- The Second Self, Life on the Screen and most recently, Alone Together . A recipient of a Guggenheim and Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship, she is a featured media commentator. She is a recipientof a Harvard Centennial Medal and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.