Quotes from Sherry Turkle

From the earliest days, videogame players were less interested in winning than in going to a new psychic place where things were always a bit different, but always the same. The gambler and the videogame player share a life of contradiction; you are overwhelmed, and so you disappear into the game.

Saltwater gargles. Lemon and honey. A drop of ipecac on the tongue. Hot milk at bedtime.

That even the most primitive Tamagotchi can inspire these feelings demonstrates that objects cross that line not because of their sophistication but because of the feelings of attachment they evoke.

I notice things.

Challenge quandary thinking, either/or thinking come by moving from the abstract to the concrete. What can we do with the choice actually in front of us?

Rule-based thinking could be used to avoid considering the person at hand.

I'm done with smart machines. I want a machine that's attentive to my needs. Where are the sensitive machines?" —Tweet available at dig_natRT @tigoe via @ramonapringle

But at the same time, there is pressure to use technology in classroom in ways that make conversation nearly impossible. Interestingly, this technology is often presented as supporting student "engagement.

Because of my training as a clinician, I believe that this kind of moment, if it happens between people, has profound therapeutic potential. We can heal ourselves by giving others what we most need.

Solitude does not necessarily mean being alone. It is a state of conscious retreat, a gathering of the self. The capacity for solitude makes relationships with others more authentic. Because you know who you are, you can see others for who they are, not for who you need them to be. So solitude enables richer conversation.

Business meetings have agendas, but friends have unscheduled needs.

This is what technology wants, it wants to be a symptom. Like all psychological symptoms, it obscures a problem by "solving" it without addressing it.

Meetings are performances of what meetings used to be

Fantasies and wishes carry their own significant messages.

Our first question must always be: What are we trying to maximize with our inventions?

being silenced by our technologies—in a way, "cured of talking." These silences—often in the presence of our children—have led to a crisis of empathy that has diminished us at home, at work, and in public life. I've said that the remedy, most simply, is a talking cure. This book is my case for conversation.

Our capacity for solitude is undermined as soon as we introduce a screen.

empathy requires vulnerability.

My mother had wanted to erase her life with him, he said.

My highest value is not that the trains are on time. I want to be free.

What is so seductive about texting, about keeping that phone on, about that little red light on the BlackBerry, is you want to know who wants you.

We're letting [technology] take us places that we don't want to go.

We used to think, 'I have a feeling; I want to make a call.' Now our impulse is, 'I want to have a feeling; I need to send a text.'

In solitude, we find ourselves; we prepare ourselves to come to conversation with something to say that is authentic, ours.