Alone Together by Sherry Turkle

Alone Together is by a psychologist who has spent thirty years researching the effects of technology on human relating. Her findings: we are expecting more of technology and less of each other. The first half of the book is about human responses to ‘social’ robots (everything from tamagochis to robots designed as company for lonely seniors in nursing homes). The second half is on how social media, text messages and emails affect how we relate to each other. This book challenged me about how I use technology, whether I’m using it to keep social interactions and people manageable and contained, whether I’m mistaking quantity of interactions for quality, whether I’m fully present with the people who are physically present or distracted by a mobile phone…