Short Stuffs - 1. Book Review — Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other

Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other is a book by Sherry Turkle, a professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT, the founder and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, and a licensed clinical psychologist. This book takes a very in-depth look into the relationship we have with technology; psychologically, emotionally, mentally, and sometimes even physically. Turkle describes the Internet as a sort of “corporate trap” that keeps us glued to the screens of our computers, and more recently, our cellphones. As the title implies, she summarizes that we do indeed expect infinitely more from technology and depend less on each other.

Turkle begins her book with a background of her research—30 years worth—demonstrating the time and effort that has gone into her life’s work. She explains about robots, how we have become dependent on them, what they do for us now, and what we expect them to be able to do for us. Turkle observes that as humans, we constantly are trying to build perfection, and pride ourselves in seeking such a solution to our insecurities; our makeshift substitution for having to face others in a very erratic society.

Similarly, Turkle also analyzes that we are drawn to robots even more because of said insecurities. She gives us the example of Edna, and 82 year old woman who lives on her own. Edna is having her granddaughter Gail over for a visit along with her two-year-old daughter Amy. The research team has a surprise; My Real Baby, a robotic and very life-like baby doll. When the team arrives, Edna is focused on Amy. After about half an hour the team gives Edna the My Real Baby, and Amy begins to ask for a cookie but these requests are ignored; “the atmosphere is quiet, even surreal: a great grandmother entranced by a robot baby, a neglected two-year-old, a shocked mother, and researchers nervously coughing in discomfort.” (p. 117) After the visit with the doll, the researchers ask Edna about what she felt when she had the doll. Edna tells them that she felt no connection whatsoever to the doll, but Turkle explains that Edna had entered somewhat of an “altered state” and was “happy to relive the past and to have a heightened experience of the present.” (p.119)

She cements these theories in an engaging and deeply psychoanalytic prose explaining that we have become so immersed in social media that “online, we have invented ways of being with people that turn them into something close to objects.” (p. 168) She explains that when we get overwhelmed with many e-mails, Tweets, Facebook notifications and personal messages, we begin to depersonalize; we treat friends as our fans, and group them together, detaching ourselves emotionally simply because that face-to-face connection no longer exists. We find ourselves caring less about individuals and treat them as “things”, and often we ourselves become a part of the collective virtual “world”; the Web.

While we are being presented with all of this information on how we attach ourselves to technology, the book would have benefitted a bit more had she probed more into the why we dissociate ourselves from each other, and prefer to use these virtual mediums to communicate. We are oftentimes presented with the same paradigm; as humans we are inherently insecure about ourselves and seek to remedy this. While Turkle does provide quotes and interviews of actual people she has come to study; some being very concise psychological, mental, and emotional proofs, we don’t get to see the same depth as of exactly how we do it.

Turkle has written a very ground-breaking book. I recommend it for anyone who wants to see just how much we, as humans and as a society in general, have immersed ourselves and become so dependent on incorporating the Internet, social media, virtual life (including robots of all types) into our already busy lives.