Alone Together
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. 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. Based on hundreds of interviews, it describes new, unsettling relationships between friends, lovers, parents, and children, and new instabilities in how we understand privacy and community, intimacy and solitude. - Publisher.
Stats for nerds
7recommend
18mentions
16people
2011–2025years
44% recommend56% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- This is an amazing idea. I’ve been thinking a lot about how smart devices have changed the way we think and interact, reading books like Alone Together and other things from Sherry Turkle’s oeuvre, and remembering how I used to use my computer so differently when I didn’t have instantaneous access to low quality crap 24/7. I think making things desktop-only could be a heuristic that gets us back a lot of the things we lost in the transition to smartphones… definitely deserves more thought.
- I was trying to go through all the research that has been done on how to understand the internet recently, and I found a jem. A book called No Sense of Place, it reads like Aristotle:) the way he was trying to correct the philosophers before him, but I still have a couple of chapters to finish.
(btw, something very important in order to understand that book and others before it, is to give up on that fancy abstract idea that the internet is just "flow of information", this idea appeal to programmers for obvious reasons, and it is the most silly way to look at the internet)
Alone Together is very good too, the way Turkle focuses on empathy is important I guess.
That all is being said, but some people on the internet deserve to be attacked, or proven wrong let's say, if I am in a good day that I think it won't exhaust my soul, I will do it.
"Maybe the web, BBSs, forums, mailing lists, and chat rooms were always like this."
Life is like that, has always been and will continue to be like that, get used to it.
- I've just updated my list of books I read this year. Scores are out of 5. If there is a + it means I found it to be extra special for some reason or other.
= Jan =
Smarter Than You Think - Clive Thompson 3
The positives of tech and the internet.
= Feb =
Super Sad True Love Story - Gary Shteyngart 4
Science fiction set in the not too distant future. Main themes include life extension and surveillance.
= Mar =
The HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams 4
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams 3
Had never read this series, thought it might be about time.
= Apr =
What does it all Mean? - Thomas Nagel 2 (though it is kind of meant for people who have never done any Philosophy, ever, so would recommend to someone like that. Will pass it on to someone taking an interest in the subject)
An introduction to Philosophy.
Earth - David Brin 5+
Science fiction set in the not too distant future, written in the 90s. Really interesting themes / vision of post climate change world.
SlaughterHouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut 5
Semi autobiographical account of the bombing of Dresden in WW2. Really funny and clever ideas. Very good.
= May =
Nick Cohen - What’s Left? 4
Account of how the left has degenerated since the collapse of the hard left and the winning of liberal battles e.g. LGBT rights. Basic premise is that those on the left hate the West and the status quo so much they stoop to allying themselves with anyone who also opposes the status quo.
= June =
Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy won’t go away - Rebecca Newberger Goldstein 5+
Plato has somehow appeared in the 21st century and is doing a talk at Google! A really enjoyable account of how Plato’s philosophy could be applied to modern issues. Really good. I want to go to Athens.
= July =
The Mind Body Problem - Rebecca Newberger Goldstein 4
Novel about a female philosophy student shagging around and philosophising about it.
Believing Bullshit - Stephen Law 4
Book detailing the various tricks / schemes played by charlatans and how to avoid being taken in by them.
= August =
36 Arguments for the Existence of God: a work of fiction - Rebecca Newberger Goldstein 3
Novel about an academic and his mentor. It was ok.
= September =
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams 3
Think I’m done reading these for now, don’t feel the urge to finish the set.
Kafka - The Trial 5
Really good. Love the surrealism - the nightmarish / dreamish-ness of it. Saw it in the Theatre as well after reading it, thought that was great too.
= October =
= November =
Existence - David Brin 3
Not as good as Earth. Glad I read that first. Interesting imagining of what form contact from alien life could take though. Also interesting look at existential risks. The main part I didn’t like was how it skipped forward in time 3 decades about 3/4s of the way through, I had thought the characters were a little weak in general up until then anyway, and then they were pretty much gone entirely at that point.
= December =
Alone Together - Sherry Turtle 4
The negatives of tech, robotics and the internet. Interesting and important read.
Imperium - Robert Harris 5
First in the semi-fictional trilogy accounting the fall of the Roman Republic, told through the eyes of Cicero’s secretary, Tiro. Really good. The politics, the corruption, the ancient city really brought to life. Enhanced by having visited Rome in the Summer.
Also currently reading ‘Reclaiming Conversation’ by Sherry Turkle, an account of the negative affect being permanently tethered to the internet has on our conversations, our capacity for empathy and our relationships, and Nietzsche’s 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'.
- Much enjoyed Sherry Turkle's Alone Together
- HN people might have higher, less-easily-attainable demands for home robots. If you haven't already, read (at least the first half of) Alone Together: http://www.amazon.com/Alone-Together-Expect-Technology-Other...
Robots have to do surprisingly little for many people to significantly bond with them.
- i'm happy for your friends, but as a practical matter they are very likely outliers in the statistical sense.
to put it in the perspective of this forum, all of my VC buddies put online dating plays in the category of domain specific search. that's a fairly sterile way to look at the process of finding a life partner, don't you think?
but beyond that, there is no credible statistical data, i.e. stats not produced by the companies themselves and peer reviewed, that would indicate these services produce anything like a non-niche impact on the occurrence of marriage in the US.
there are however numerous more deliberate commentaries on the topic of technology and its impact on the social fabric of culture. one of my personal favs is "Alone Together" by Sherry Turkle.
The more interesting question in all of this is why exactly online dating functions are even viable. IMHO the fact that people, particularly in the business we are in (i'm assuming you are in the software biz as well) spend so much time chained to a desk that they cannot go out and actually interact physically with other human beings is the point of my original response.
