Sherry Turkle Quotes

What troubles me is the Internet and the electronic technology revolution. Shyness is fueled in part by so many people spending huge amounts of time alone, isolated on e-mail, in chat rooms, which reduces their face-to-face contact with other people.

We're lonely, but we're afraid of intimacy. And so from social networks to sociable robots, we're designing technologies that will give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship.

As connected as we are with technology, it's also removed us from having to have human connection, made it more convenient to not be intimate.

With technology, there is so much isolation with people now, that there are very few places where you can connect.

We can be incredibly disconnected in this day and age with computers and cell phones.

From the boardroom to the bedroom, we're connected 24/7, yet loneliness is at an all-time high. More people are reaching for mobile devices than for the hand of someone in need. Where did our humanity go?

No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other things in the world.

I'm equally guilty of using technology - I Twitter, I text people, I chat. But I think there's something strangely insidious about it that it makes us think we're closer when in fact we're not seeing each other, we're not connecting.

I meet so many people, but I don't know anybody.

The smartphones and the computer separates everybody, makes you think that you don't need nobody else.

For every step forward in electronic communications, we've taken two steps back in humanity. People know how to use a computer and answering machines but have forgotten how to connect with one another. Our society is unraveling. We're too self-obsessed.

As soon as you're locking doors, you're narrowing your circle. And your circle gets smaller and smaller until it's finally just yourself and your buddy and you've got no one to party with.

Everything has become so easy. It's great that it's at your fingertips, but I miss those good old days. And we're connected, but it can be very alienating. There is this distance between all of us because we're speaking to each other through cameras and monitors and icons and Emojis.

We think constant connection will make us feel less lonely. The opposite is true.

We have a million ways to get ahold of people, and we're the loneliest we've ever been.

It's easy to blame technology for what we perceive to be a vast disconnect between people. We're so wrapped up in social media, texting, online dating - in many ways, we're addicted to our devices.

I was in my early 30s, and I longed for real friendships and real relationships, and I started asking myself why I didn't have that. I had a couple of male friends, but every time I would hang out with them, it felt like there was something keeping us apart.

I'm dating my iPhone.

As the people grow colder, I turn to my computer and spend my evenings with it like a friend.

Technology is seductive when what it offers meets our human vulnerabilities. And as it turns out, we are very vulnerable indeed. We are lonely but fearful of intimacy. Digital connections and the sociable robot may offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. Our networked life allows us to hide from each other, even as we are tethered to each other. We’d rather text than talk.

You always feel like you are the only one in the world, like everyone else is crazy for each other, but it's not true. Generally, people don't like each other very much. And that goes for friends, too.

What was the point in such loneliness among people. At least if you were by yourself, you had a good reason to be lonely.

Just because digital technology makes connecting possible doesn't mean you're actually reaching people.

Sometimes, the loneliness probably got to be too much and anyone seemed better than no one.

Technology is fine. . ., but that popular vision of the future, where you plug somebody in and leave them there and they don't get out and interact with actual flesh-and-blood humans - you know the answer before I say it - that's not good.