Quotes from Sherry Turkle

I've talked so much about virtuous circles; here is a vicious cycle. Knowing we have someplace "else" to go in a moment of boredom leaves us less experienced at exploring our inner lives and therefore more likely to want the stimulation of what is on our phones.

if your pet is a robot, it might always stay a cute puppy. By extension, if your lover were a robot, you would always be the center of its universe. A robot would not just be better than nothing or better than something, but better than anything. From

if you never teach your children how to be alone then they will only know how to be lonely for the rest of their lives.

Often it is children who tell their parents to put away the cell phone at dinner.

When young people are insecure, they find ways to manufacture love tests – personal metrics to reassure themselves.

What is a place if those who are physically present have their attention on the absent? At a café a block from my home, almost everyone is on a computer or smartphone as they drink their coffee. These people are not my friends, yet somehow I miss their presence.

if we don't have experience with solitude—and this is often the case today—we start to equate loneliness and solitude. This reflects the impoverishment of our experience. If we don't know the satisfactions of solitude, we only know the panic of loneliness.

When we don't want to know the truth, we don't hear the truth spoken to us.

Burl Ives singing children's songs.

Ray, twenty-eight, comments on what it's like to have a relationship when you compete with screens: "I think the way we're going, a lot of people are getting the feeling that even though the person they're with is there, you don't get the feeling of real connection. You just have information.

I saw the authentic rather than the rebuilt or enhanced.

Computers brought philosophy into everyday life.

You pass your photo through Photoshop and then others go photo shopping.

You can't think about thinking without thinking about something

She had set it on the Internet, its own peculiar echo chamber.

My cell phone is my only individual zone, just for me.

If you feel it right now, on the Internet, you can tell them right now; you don't have to wait for anything.

It taught me this: The most insecure people often seem like the most obnoxious ones.

He prefers a deliberate performance that can be made to seem spontaneous.

When I interview candidates, I like to go where they live, so I can see them in their environment, not just in mind.

A classical view of people as "rational animals" gave way to a new idea, people as "emotional machines.

The idea of the original had no place.

One of the privileges of childhood is that some of the world is mediated by adults.

So, instead of doing your email as you push your daughter in her stroller, talk to her. Instead of putting a digital tablet in your son's baby bouncer, read to him and chat about the book. Instead of a quick text if you find a conversation going stale, make an effort to engage your peers.