How Technology Affect on Human Behavior According to The Book Alone Together

As we use technology more and more we expect our social lives to become more active. We expect many aspects of our lives to improve and we think the very relationship between us and technology is the solution to this drive for improvement. Sherry Turkle in the book Alone Together challenges that expectation. She talks about emotional connections with inanimate objects, robots, artificial intelligence, intimacy, and the illusion of socialization. In Part 1 of the book you feel a hint of nostalgia when the author talks about toys like tamagotchis and furbies. We examined the “mourning” of children after one of their toys has “died”. Children have the power to make these toys living things to them, and to us they’re just a hunk of metal, wires, and plastic. Children create bonds with toys that may not necessarily be healthy for them. Toys like My Real Baby advertise that it will improve your child’s social life when in reality it’s just giving them something to do. We look at the elderly in Japan and examine their need for robotic caregivers, and how the lack of emotional and human connection could make our future change dramatically. In Part 2 of the book we examine something more relevant and personal. We examine how are connectivity is changing our lives. Social media and online worlds ask you to form an identity. A lot of the time that identity is different from your own. This book is one of the most interesting books I’ve read in my life, in the rest of my essay I’ll examine the book so you can decide for yourself if it is worth reading.

Alone Together was written to first give background to the emotional attachment to technology, and then to show how it is part of our everyday reality. The author of this book is Sherry Turkle. Sherry Turkle is currently a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She wrote Alone Together to address the rapidly growing movement towards technology and how its changing our behavior. Her life relates to the content of this book because before she wrote the book Alone Together she wrote a book called Life on the Screen which examined a study of how people use computers. Her thoughts evolved from computers to technology as a whole, and that is why she wrote this book. The audience of this book is intended for everyone, you can tell because the book does not speak in a tone that would be more satisfying to a younger or older audience. There is an opinionated tone in the book but it is more descriptive, it satisfies everyone. Also there are photos of people on the front of the book from various backgrounds and age groups.

The beginning of the book starts off my looking at children “mourning” the loss of their toy. They have formed emotional attachments to these toys and become sad when it dies. We look at robots like AIBO, a robot dog that interacts with people. There is one caveat about this robot, and that is it doesn’t require any sort of attention. The relationship between AIBO and a child can only have the child think about themselves. We look at how artificial intelligence is being developed to address the needs of Japan’s aging population. Although robots would help in many ways, there is a concern that the lack of human touch would be detrimental to their lives and our world’s future. In Part 2 of the book we look at social media. We change aspects of our personality so we can appear a certain way on websites like Twitter and Facebook. We create a new identity for ourselves and edit out the parts we don’t like. We’re so closely networked together but we communicate with each other for the amusement or comfort. Social media has changed what we perceive as a friendship as our connections are much more shallow and less meaningful. People also prefer texting over face to face communication in hopes of removing an awkward boundary. Finally, we look at avatars and how they allow us to form companionships online without having to actually form a relationship with someone. The author’s main argument is that the direction technology is heading is that it will keep us so connected that we will be furthered into isolation and further from being connected than ever.

The author’s argument is that children are mourning the loss of their toy that has no soul. This poses the question what defines a human being? And if a soul is the differentiator what makes the soul? Children are placing so much emotion in these objects that they see a soul in them. For example, “Denise panics: It’s dead. It’s dead right now…It’s eyes are closed” (Alone Together 43) Denise panicking over a toy dying seems really abnormal, if my toy “died” I would be upset over it shutting off or the battery dying. Not the life of the toy dying. It’s different from a game because the whole object is part of its personality. This is driving them into isolation because all of the emotion and time being given to this device could be invested in their social life or immediate surroundings. The AIBO toy teaches children to worry about their needs in a relationship. The reason for this is because the toy doesn’t require any needs, like most robotic toys do. So it’s companionship doesn’t require the interaction of the child. This is unhealthy in so many ways because the child is learning relationship dynamics early on with their toys. The My Real Baby toy is marketed to children to teach them ‘socialization’, in reality this is not the case. “I am skeptical. I believe that sociable technology will always disappoint because it promises what it cannot deliver. It promises friendship but can only deliver performances. Do we really want to be in the business of manufacturing friends that will never be friends?” (Alone Together 101) I think this is really disturbing giving that these children are interacting with something that they think is their companion when they could be spending that time socializing with real people. One of the most relevant quotes from the book to me is “In the new etiquette, turning away from those in front of you to answer a mobile phone or respond to a text has become close to the norm. When someone holds a phone, it can be hard to know if you have that person’s attention. A parent, partner, or child glances down and is lost to another place. Often without realizing that they have taken leave” (Alone Together 161). This is by far the strongest quote in favor of the author’s argument. You have people plugged into their phones to be more connected but if you walk up to them they may not be paying attention. That is the most ironic thing in existence. The last quote I have in support of the author’s main argument is about avatars. Some people perform their life through avatars or virtual characters. “When we perform a life through our avatars, we express our hopes, strengths, and vulnerabilities…People can use an avatar as ‘practice for real life” (Alone Together 212) This is not good at all. All of that expression and vulnerability is going right down the drain. Nobody online cares, lets be real. You would be best expressing that in real life and then seeing real life results.

In conclusion, I think this book is definitely worth reading. I think there are so many things to be learned from this book. Technology is rapidly changing the world and if you want to learn more about this and how it is affecting human behavior I highly recommend picking up this book. I give this book 5 our of 5 stars.