Quotes from Sherry Turkle

Technology challenges us to look at our human values. We can try to use technology to cure Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, which would be a blessing, but that blessing is not a reason to move from artificial brain enhancement to artificial intimacy.

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.

Thumbs up or thumbs down on a website is not a conversation. The danger is you get into a habit of mind where politics means giving a thumbs up or thumbs down to a website. The world is a much more complex place.

I love sharing photographs and websites, I'm for all of these things. I'm for Facebook. But to say that this is sociability? We begin to define things in terms of what technology enables and technology allows.

We are inhibited from aggression by the presence of another face, another person. We're aware that we're with a human being. On the Internet, we are disinhibited from taking into full account that we are in the presence of another human being.

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 doesn't teach you how to think critically about living in a culture of simulation.

I think that we live in techno-enthusiastic times. We celebrate our technologies because people are frightened by the world we've made.

I think few people of education enter politics because it seems like a contact blood sport.

Everybody wants a robot that will do psychotherapy. But If you don't have empathy, you don't have psychotherapy. The robot doesn't know about life.

What I'm seeing is a generation that says consistently, 'I would rather text than make a telephone call.' Why? It's less risky. I can just get the information out there. I don't have to get all involved; it's more efficient. I would rather text than see somebody face to face.

The selfie makes us accustomed to putting ourselves and those around us 'on pause' in order to document our lives. It is an extension of how we have learned to put our conversations 'on pause' when we send or receive a text, an image, an email, a call.

It used to be that people had a way of dealing with the world that was basically, 'I have a feeling, I want to make a call.' Now I would capture a way of dealing with the world, which is: 'I want to have a feeling, I need to send a text.'

Teenagers would rather text than talk. They feel calls would reveal too much.

A selfie, like any photograph, interrupts experience to mark the moment. In this, it shares something with all the other ways we break up our day: when we text during class, in meetings, at the theater, at dinners with friends.

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!

Technology doesn't just do things for us. It does things to us, changing not just what we do but who we are.

We expect more from technology and less from each other. We create technology to provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship.

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.

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.

In life, you are struck by the importance of presence, of the small moments of meaning, the miracle of your child's breath, the feelings of deep human connection. When you are thinking about technology, your mind is not on all of that.

What technology makes easy is not always what nurtures the human spirit.

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.

We're smitten with technology. And we're afraid, like young lovers, that too much talking might spoil the romance. But it's time to talk.

We are not as strong as technology's pull.