Authors@Google: Sherry Turkle - "Alone Together"

Consider Facebook—it's 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. It's a nuanced exploration of what we are
looking for—and sacrificing—in a world of electronic companions and
social networking tools, and an argument that, despite the hand-waving
of today's self-described prophets of the future, it will be the next
generation who will chart the path between isolation and
connectivity.

Sherry Turkle is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social
Studies of Science and Technology at MIT. She is frequently
interviewed in Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, and the Wall Street
Journal, on NBC News, and more. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts.