233 Quotes by Sherry Turkle

It used to be that we imagined our mobile phones were there so that we could talk to each other. Now we want our mobile phones to talk to us.

My own study of the networked life has left me thinking about intimacy – about being with people in person, hearing their voices and seeing their faces, trying to know their hearts. And it has left me thinking about solitude – the kind that refreshes and restores. Loneliness is failed solitude.

In games, he feels that he is “creating something new.” But this is creation where someone has already been. It is not creation but the FEELING of creation. These are feelings of accomplishment on a time scale and with a certainty that the real world cannot provide.

Technology doesn’t just do things for us. It does things to us, changing not just what we do but who we are.

But who said that a life without conflict, without being reminded of past mistakes, past pain, or one where you can avoid rubbing shoulders with troublesome people, is good? Was it the same person who said that life shouldn’t have boring bits? In this case, if technology gives us the feeling that we can communicate with total control, life’s contingencies become a problem. Just because technology can help us solve a “problem” doesn’t mean it was a problem in the first place.

If you don’t learn how to be alone, you’ll always be lonely, loneliness is failed solitude.

We’re lonely, but we’re afraid of intimacy. And so from social networks to sociable robots, we’re designing technologies that will give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship.

Loneliness is painful, emotionally and even physically, born from a “want of intimacy” when we need it most, in early childhood. Solitude – the capacity to be contentedly and constructively alone – is built from successful human connection at just that time.

In all of these cases, we use technology to “dial down” human contact, to titrate its nature and extent. People avoid face-to-face conversation but are comforted by being in touch with people – and sometimes with a lot of people – who are emotionally kept at bay. It’s another instance of the Goldilocks effect. It’s part of the move from conversation to mere connection.