Sherry Turkle

Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome MIT professor of technology and society SHERRY TURKLE as she discusses the effect our technology has on our social relationships and her new book, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other.

Consider Facebook—it’s a form of 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, Sherry Turkle explores the power of our new tools and toys to dramatically alter our social lives. It’s an 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.

“As the digital age sparks increasing debate about what new technologies and increased connectivity are doing to our brains, comes this chilling examination of what our iPods and iPads are doing to our relationships.... 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

Sherry Turkle is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT. She is frequently interviewed in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, on NBC News, and more. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts.