*Starred Review* The modern world is one of paradox, writes MIT professor, clinical psychologist, and prominent writer Turkle (Alone Together, 2011). Technology has enabled humans to become the most resourceful, resilient, and rewarded beings in history, yet many of us appear to lack the social and linguistic abilities to successfully navigate even the most basic situations. What has been compromised in the digital age is the ability to relate. E-mails, texts, instant messages, and social media have afforded myriad methods by which to connect, but at the expense of the ability to converse. These are ways to share information but not ideals, means of reaching out to but not truly touching someone else. As a result, people are losing the ability to empathize, to talk beyond the most superficial level, to develop deeper understandings of ourselves and our place in the larger world, one that seems to have shrunk to the size of a phone or computer screen. From the kitchen table to the classroom and office, these electronic devices dictate how humans interact. Knowing how and when best to use them can make the difference between meaningful communication and meaningless encounters. There's a wealth of relevant information and revealing insights on every page as Turkle provocatively takes us to the use it or lose it communications precipice.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2015 Booklist

Turkle argues that digital technology reduces people's ability to have deep and meaningful face-to-face conversations, which are essential for the many connections in life, business, and love. She explores different problems and strategies through anecdotes and research that can help people navigate the demands of technology and real-world interactions. Potter presents Turkle's words with a natural and wholehearted delivery. She teases out subtleties in the text, and casts quotes from outside sources and short bouts of dialogue in relief. A Penguin Press hardcover. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Turkle (social studies of science and technology, MIT, and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self) has spent the last three decades studying the junctions between human behavior and technology. A psychologist by training, she has written several books that offer scientifically rigorous yet humanistic analyses of human-computer interaction, among them Alone Together (CH, Aug'11, 48-7239). In the present volume, Turkle examines the possible dehumanizing effects of technology (effects she originally asserted in Alone Together) as evidenced in media-based communication. She claims that the propensity to use technology to communicate remotely in disjointed chunks, such as in texting, rather than in rich, protracted, deep conversations has the potential to shut down the ability to truly connect with others and engage in deep thinking. A longtime proponent of the beneficial possibilities of technology, Turkle supports her criticisms with examples of well-documented behaviors--such as unwillingness to engage, as one reaches for a smartphone at the first sign of boredom or interpersonal conflict. This book is a timely and important contribution to media studies and communication theory. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. --Susan M. Frey, Indiana State University

"Put down that cell phone and reclaim conversation!" demands Turkle (social science, Massachusetts Inst. of Technology; Alone Together). Her main points are that conversation is solitude, listening, mentoring, deep reading, and multitasking, and conversation makes us happier, more empathetic, and less lonely. She argues that texting and social media displace and distract us from authentic communication, supporting her message with poignant vignettes, which ultimately cannot establish that lives of endless, Internet chatter are universal. Recent studies by Wikia and the Pew Research Center have shown that not all teens are "plugged in" or message constantly. Even Turkle's own stories feature conversations gone awry. A young man storms out angrily, and a middle school principal sadistically interrogates a student. Worse yet, she offers few solutions. Turkle advocates "sacred spaces" and changing cell phones' "affordances" but fails to mentions apps that temporarily block distractions. Those who enjoy social science and Internet critiques can also read Andrew Keene's Digital Vertigo or Marc Prensky's Brain Gain, while those interested in better conversation can try Susan Scott's Fierce Conversation. Verdict For Turkle fans only. Everyone else can do better.-Eileen H. Kramer, Georgia Perimeter Coll. Lib., Clarkston © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.