Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Each Other

Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, originally published in 2011, is a work of nonfiction that explores technology’s effect on how humans interact with one another. The book is split into two halves: the first deals with human interactions with sociable robots and the second with the networked connections of social media and virtual worlds.

In the 1970s, Turkle meets ELIZA, a computer program that “engaged in dialogue in the style of a psychotherapist” (22). It acts mostly as a Rorschach that people use to express themselves. The Tamagotchi (digital pets a user must care for as if they are real pets), Furby (small robotic toys programmed to speak their own language at first and more and more English over time, giving the appearance of learning), and AIBO (a robotic dog) of the 1990s are a step beyond ELIZA because they make demands of the user, presenting themselves as ready for a relationship. Turkle interviews many children who bond with these toys as they would with another person.

Turkle goes on to explore the advancing technology of robotics with My Real Baby, a doll able to perform many of the same actions of a human baby.