Sherry Turkle

Sherry Turkle (born June 18, 1948) is an American sociologist.

She is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

She obtained a BA in social studies and later a PhD in sociology and personality psychology at Harvard University.

She now focuses her research on psychoanalysis and human-technology interaction.

She has written several books focusing on the psychology of human relationships with technology, especially in the realm of how people relate to computational objects.

Her memoir 'Empathy Diaries' received fair critical reviews.

In The Second Self, she writes about how computers are not tools as much as they are a part of our social and psychological lives, writing that technology "catalyzes changes not only in what we do but in how we think.” She goes on using Jean Piaget's psychology discourse to discuss how children learn about computers and how this affects their minds. The Second Self was received well by critics and was praised for being “a very thorough and ambitious study.”

In Life on the Screen, Turkle discusses how emerging technology, specifically computers, affect the way we think and see ourselves as humans.

She presents to us the different ways in which computers affect us, and how it has led us to the now prevalent use of "cyberspace."

Turkle suggests that assuming different personal identities in a MUD (i.e. computer fantasy game) may be therapeutic.

She also considers the problems that arise when using MUDs.

Turkle discusses what she calls women's "non-linear" approach to the technology, calling it "soft mastery" and "bricolage" (as opposed to the "hard mastery" of linear, abstract thinking and computer programming).

She discusses problems that arise when children pose as adults online.

Turkle also explores the psychological and societal impact of such "relational artifacts" as social robots, and how these and other technologies are changing attitudes about human life and living things generally.

One result may be a devaluation of authentic experience in a relationship.

Together with Seymour Papert she wrote the influential paper "Epistemological Pluralism and the Revaluation of the Concrete."

Turkle has written numerous articles on psychoanalysis and culture and on the "subjective side" of people's relationships with technology, especially computers.

She is engaged in active study of robots, digital pets, and simulated creatures, particularly those designed for children and the elderly as well as in a study of mobile cellular technologies.

Profiles of Turkle have appeared in such publications as The New York Times, Scientific American, and Wired Magazine.

She is a featured media commentator on the effects of technology for CNN, NBC, ABC, and NPR, including appearances on such programs as Nightline and 20/20.

Turkle has begun to assess the adverse effects of rapidly advancing technology on human social behavior.

Sherry Turkle was born in Brooklyn on June 18, 1948.

After she graduated as a valedictorian from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1965, she began her studies at Radcliffe College, graduating in 1969 with a bachelor's degree in Social Studies.

She then obtained a master's degree in sociology in 1973 and a doctorate in Sociology and Personality Psychology in 1976, both from Harvard University.

Inspired by her time in France during her undergraduate years, she did her dissertation research in France, "writing about the relationship between Freudian thought and the modern French revolutionary movements."

This relationship was also the subject of her first book, Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud's French Revolution.

Turkle has been married twice, first to MIT researcher Seymour Papert, and then to consultant Ralph Willard.

Both marriages ended in divorce.

In The Second Self (1984), Turkle defines the computer as more than just a tool, but part of our everyday personal and psychological lives.

She looks at how computers affect the way we look at ourselves and our relationships with others, claiming that technology defines the way we think and act.

Turkle's book allows us to view and reevaluate our own relationships with technology.

In her process of evaluating our relationships with computers, Turkle interviews children, college students, engineers, AI scientists, hackers and personal computer owners in order to further understand our relationships with computers and how we interact with them on a personal level.

The interviews showed that computers are both a part of our selves as well as part of the external world.

In this book, Turkle tries to figure out why we think of computers in such psychological terms, how this happens and what this means for all of us.

In Life on the Screen (1995), Turkle presents a study of how people's use of the computer has evolved over time, and the profound effect that this machine has on its users.

The computer, which connects millions of people across the world together, is changing the way we think and see ourselves.

Although it was originally intended to serve as a tool to help us to write and communicate with others, it has more recently transformed into a means of providing us with virtual worlds which we can step into and interact with other people.

The book discusses how our everyday interactions with computers affect our minds and the way we think about ourselves.

In particular, interacting with these virtual worlds, especially through language, can shift a unitary sense of self into one with a multiplicity of identities.

Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other was published in 2011 and when discussing the topic she speaks about the need to limit the use of popular technological devices because of these adverse effects.