One of the books I’m reading right now is Sherry Turkle’s 2012 book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other.
I wanted to read this book to help me better contextualize some of the ideas I began exploring in my Colson Center series on technology and attention. Turkle argues that even though our digital devices allow us to be more connected than ever before, in another sense our technology is alienating us from each other by destroying our ability for authentic communication.
Today I came across a Ted Talk video where Turkle gives a very succinct summary of her findings after fifteen years of research. I’ve followed it by a more humorous conversation when she appeared on the Colbert Report.