Quote

Human relationships are rich and they're messy and they're demanding. And we clean them up with technology. We sacrifice conversation for mere connection.

Sherry Turkle

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Sherry Turkle
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: June 18
Non-Fiction Writer
Professor
Psychologist
Sociologist
University Teacher
New York City
New York
Human
Mere
Humans
Sacrifice
Demanding
Conversation
Messy
Technology
Connection
Rich
Caring
Forget
Connections
Happens
Relationships
Seems
Clean

More quotes by Sherry Turkle

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It used to be that we imagined that our mobile phones would be for us to talk to each other. Now, our mobile phones are there to talk to us.
Sherry Turkle
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We're too busy communicating to think, too busy communicating to connect, and sometimes we're too busy communicating to create. This is true for individuals and also true for organizations.
Sherry Turkle
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Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I'd like to learn how to have a conversation.
Sherry Turkle
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There are moments of opportunity for families moments they need to put technology away. These include: no phones or texting during meals. No phones or texting when parents pick up children at school - a child is looking to make eye contact with a parent!
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Telephone companies sell us voice plans because they know we're not going to use them. We're hiding from each other. People say that calls aren't efficient, but trying to bring efficiency into your intimacy can get you into a lot of trouble.
Sherry Turkle
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We have relationships with many different things, creatures and beings. We have relationships with cats, with dogs, with horses, and we know that there are certain things they can't do. So we'll add robots to that list, and we'll learn what they can and cannot do. No harm, no foul.
Sherry Turkle
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I apologize to all of my colleagues who've been writing up storms, but as a culture we've essentially put ourselves into a position where Mark Zuckerberg can say, Privacy as a social norm is no longer relevant, and a lot of people don't blink an eye.
Sherry Turkle
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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.
Sherry Turkle
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One thing is certain: the riddle of mind, long a topic for philosophers, has taken on new urgency. Under pressure from the computer, the question of mind in relation to machine is becoming a central cultural preoccupation. It is becoming for us what sex was to the Victorians--threat and obsession, taboo and fascination.
Sherry Turkle
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People thought I was very pro-computer. I was on the cover of Wired magazine. [Then things began to change. In the early 80s,] we met this technology and became smitten like young lovers. But today our attachment is unhealthy.
Sherry Turkle
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As a therapist, I know that when you're vulnerable, the best way to move on is to admit your vulnerability, don't beat yourself up for it, and try to find a way to analyze your vulnerability. Pull up your socks and try to do better for you and your family.
Sherry Turkle
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We expect more from technology and less from each other. We create technology to provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship.
Sherry Turkle
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Hold on to your passion - you'll need it!
Sherry Turkle
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Teenagers would rather text than talk. They feel calls would reveal too much.
Sherry Turkle
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It is painful to watch children trying to show off for parents who are engrossed in their cell phones. Children are nostalgic for the 'good old days' when parents used to read to them without the cell phone by their side or watch football games or Disney movies without having the BlackBerry handy.
Sherry Turkle
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The most used program in computers and education is PowerPoint. What are you learning about the nature of the medium by knowing how do to a great PowerPoint presentation? Nothing. It certainly doesnt teach you how to think critically about living in a culture of simulation.
Sherry Turkle
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Networked, we are together, but so lessened are our expectations of each other that we can feel utterly alone. And there is the risk that we come to see others as objects to be accessed—and only for the parts we find useful, comforting, or amusing.
Sherry Turkle
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Technology challenges us to assert our human values, which means that first of all, we have to figure out what they are.
Sherry Turkle
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We're letting [technology] take us places that we don't want to go.
Sherry Turkle
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The computer is a mind machine. It doesn't have its own psychology, but in a way it presents itself as though it does.
Sherry Turkle