Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other

By S. Turkle. 2011

1,375 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Consider Facebookits 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, MIT technology and society professor Sherry Turkle explores the power of our new tools and toys to dramatically alter our social lives. Its a nuanced exploration of what we are looking forand sacrificingin a world of electronic companions and social networking tools, and an argument that, despite the hand-waving of todays self-described prophets of the future, it will be the next generation who will chart the path between isolation and connectivity.

Subfields: Communication, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/57f3a16a88d74fbd4873112177228a21309f001f

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Citations in the corpus

The role of Facebook in romantic relationship development (2013, background): “…relationships, relationship development, social networking sites, Facebook, stage models of relationships, uncertainty reduction Social networking web sites (SNSs) have become an integral medium for communicating within and about interpersonal relationships (Baym, 2010; Boyd, 2008; Turkle, 2011).”
Organizational Strategies for Promoting Work-Life Balance and Wellbeing (2013, background): “The phenomenon of constant connection to work has increasingly been linked to attention deficit disorder, stress, and depletion of resources (Kossek & Lautsch, 2007; Turkle, 2011).”
From arts marketing to audience enrichment: How digital engagement can deepen and democratize artistic exchange with audiences (2016, background): “It also supported both Andrew Keen and Lynne Conner’s respective attacks on the rising cult of the amateur and guerrilla-style online engagement, while echoing Shelly Turkle and Judy Wajcman’s calls for communications technologies to engender a more meaningful, mindful form of connectivity.”
The Digital Workforce and the Workplace of the Future (2016, background): “Inher book Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other, Turkle (2011) observed that the continual presence of technology has changed how we interact with one another and what we expect from our relationships.”
The digital platform: a research agenda (2018, background): “Facebook may not only offer uniquely new opportunities for sociality to be rendered into computed categorisations (Alaimo and Kallinikos, 2015), but may indeed also support the displacement of co-present interaction (Putnam, 2000; Turkle, 2011).”
Partner phubbing and depression among married Chinese adults: The roles of relationship satisfaction and relationship length (2017, background): “Similarly, cell phone use during face-to-face interactions makes persons less involved in the conversation, thereby decreasing the quality of the conversation (Turkle, 2011).”
Products as Pals: Engaging with Anthropomorphic Products Mitigates the Effects of Social Exclusion (2017, positive): “While some have speculated about the role technology may play in decreasing interpersonal interaction (Turkle 2011), the current research suggests that any consumer product subtly construed as anthropomorphic could reduce interpersonal interactions, not just technological products.”
The Mere Presence of a Cell Phone May be Distracting (2014, background): “…to attend, either in thought or action, to other people or events elsewhere in cyberspace (Geser, 2002; Ling, 2004; Plant, 2000; Srivastava, 2005; Turkle, 2011); ‘‘Thumbs are stronger, attention shorter, temptation everywhere: we can always be, mentally, digitally, someplace other than where we…”
Social isolation: A conceptual and measurement proposal (2014, neutral): “Turkle (2011), in turn, suggested that our increasing relationship with technology is related to being afraid of intimacy and deeply bound to the feeling of ‘no-one is listening to me’.”
Connected Learning: An Agenda for Research and Design (2013, background): “For example, Sherry Turkle (2011) has argued that teens are turning away from meaningful and embodied social communication with their over-reliance on texting and social media.”