We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.
Sherry TurkleRead
If people start to buy the idea that machines are great companions for the elderly or for children, as they increasingly seem to do, we are really playing with fire.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote warns against the increasing reliance on machines as companions for vulnerable populations, like the elderly and children.
Sherry Turkle's quote highlights the potential dangers of viewing machines as companions for those who may be emotionally and socially vulnerable, such as the elderly and children. It suggests that while technology may offer convenience and connection, it also raises ethical concerns about the implications of replacing human interaction with artificial companionship, potentially leading to emotional neglect and diminishing the value of genuine relationships.
Themes
MachinesCompanionsElderlyChildrenTechnologyRelationships
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on the role of technology in caregiving at a conference.
More from Sherry Turkle
All quotes βThe 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.
Sherry TurkleRead
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. Weβd rather text than talk.
Sherry TurkleRead
Human relationships are rich and they're messy and they're demanding. And we clean them up with technology. Texting, email, posting, all of these things let us present the self as we want to be. We get to edit, and that means we get to delete, and that means we get to retouch, the face, the voice, the flesh, the body -- not too little, not too much, just right.
Sherry TurkleRead
The feeling that 'no one is listening to me' make us want to spend time with machines that seem to care about us.
Sherry TurkleRead
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.
Sherry TurkleRead
Similar quotes
If we enter into the kind of world that Google likes, the world that Google wants, it's a world where information is copied so much on the Internet that nobody knows where it came from anymore, so there can't be any rights of authorship.
Jaron LanierRead
Customers need to be given control of their own data-not being tied into a certain manufacturer so that when there are problems they are always obliged to go back to them.
Tim Berners-LeeRead
So what used to fit in a building now fits in your pocket, what fits in your pocket now will fit inside a blood cell in 25 years.
Ray KurzweilRead
Everybody right now, they look at the current technology, and they think, 'OK, that's what artificial neural nets are.' And they don't realize how arbitrary it is. We just made it up! And there's no reason why we shouldn't make up something else.
Geoffrey HintonRead
C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success.
Dennis RitchieRead
[The] dynamics of computational artifacts extend beyond the interface narrowly defined, to relations of people with each other and to the place of computing in their ongoing activities. System design, it follows, must include not only the design of innovative technologies, but their artful integration with the rest of the social and material world.
Lucy SuchmanRead