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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

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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
Machine
Psychology
Computer
Though
Doesn
Mind
Presents

More quotes by 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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What is the value of interactions that contain no understanding of us and that contribute nothing to a shared store of human meaning?
Sherry Turkle
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What technology makes easy is not always what nurtures the human spirit.
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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We're letting [technology] take us places that we don't want to go.
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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Teenagers would rather text than talk. They feel calls would reveal too much.
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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Technology doesn't just do things for us. It does things to us, changing not just what we do but who we are.
Sherry Turkle
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I don't tell a story unless I have a very deep bench. If you tell an idiosyncratic story, there's no resonance. People read it and say, I don't see anyone like that. So I tell a story only when I have many stories behind it.
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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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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These days, insecure in our relationships and anxious about intimacy, we look to technology for ways to be in relationships and protect ourselves from them at the same time.
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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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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we seem determined to give human qualities to objects and content to treat each other as things.
Sherry Turkle
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We are not as strong as technology's pull.
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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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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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