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By: Justin Phillips

Sherry Turkle received a BA in Social Studies and later a Ph.D. in Sociology and Personality Psychology at Harvard University. She is currently the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. [2] Turkle has spent most of her life researching the “psychology of people’s relationships with technology.” [4] She mostly focuses on the way technology affects the way people communicate and even how they think.

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Turkle is concerned with artificial intimacy and how thinking can be simulated but love and feelings, on the other hand, come with a bag full of drawbacks. In her book, Alone Together, she says, “People seem comforted by the belief that if we alienate or fail each other, robots will be there, programmed to provide simulations of love.”[5] However, she goes on to talk about how relying on the intimacy of technological means can lead to the degradation of the intimacy of most physical means. Turkle argues that texts, emails, instant messages, and snapchats have nearly replaced face-to-face conversations and it is causing people to have less empathy and social skills.

Turkle is trying to push for more places that are “sacred spaces” like the dinner table or study spaces where there it is a device free zone.  She wants people to move away from allowing technology to rule their social lives and seeing smartphones as a “universal tool that should replace everything.” [1]  She is helping the world see a better way of interacting with those around us. In that way, she has an influence on everyone in society, not just the well-known people.