Renowned media scholar Sherry Turkle investigates how a flight from conversation undermines our relationships, creativity, and productivity--and why reclaiming face-to-face conversation can help us regain lost ground.
We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.
Preeminent author and researcher Sherry Turkle has been studying digital culture for over thirty years. Long an enthusiast for its possibilities, here she investigates a troubling consequence: at work, at home, in politics, and in love, we find ways around conversation, tempted by the possibilities of a text or an email in which we don't have to look, listen, or reveal ourselves. We develop a taste for what mere connection offers. The dinner table falls silent as children compete with phones for their parents' attention. Friends learn strategies to keep conversations going when only a few people are looking up from their phones. At work, we retreat to our screens although it is conversation at the water cooler that increases not only productivity but commitment to work. Online, we only want to share opinions that our followers will agree with - a politics that shies away from the real conflicts and solutions of the public square. The case for conversation begins with the necessary conversations of solitude and self-reflection. They are endangered: these days, always connected, we see loneliness as a problem that technology should solve. Afraid of being alone, we rely on other people to give us a sense of ourselves, and our capacity for empathy and relationship suffers. We see the costs of the flight from conversation everywhere: conversation is the cornerstone for democracy and in business it is good for the bottom line. In the private sphere, it builds empathy, friendship, love, learning, and productivity. But there is good news: we are resilient. Conversation cures. Based on five years of research and interviews in homes, schools, and the workplace, Turkle argues that we have come to a better understanding of where our technology can and cannot take us and that the time is right to reclaim conversation. The most human--and humanizing--thing that we do. The virtues of person-to-person conversation are timeless, and our most basic technology, talk, responds to our modern challenges. We have everything we need to start, we have each other.
Named one of Cosmopolitan's "Books You Won't Be Able to Put Down This Summer"
Selected as one of Amazon's "Best Books of the Month"
A Refinery29 Editors' Pick
- finding online support and community for conditions such as depression and eating disorders, while avoiding potential triggers such as #Thinspiration Pinterest boards
- learning and developing life skills through technology--for example, by problem-solving in online games--while avoiding inappropriate content Written by a public health expert and the creator of the popular blog Rants from Mommyland, this book shows parents how to help their kids navigate friendships, bullying, dating, self-esteem, and more online.
The News: A User's Manual is an insightful analysis of the impact of the incessant news machine on us and our culture.
The news is everywhere. We can't stop constantly checking it on our computer screens, but what is this doing to our minds? We are never taught how to make sense of the torrent of news we face daily, which has a huge influence on our sense of what matters and of how we should lead our lives. Alain de Botton takes twenty-five archetypal news stories--including an airplane crash, a murder, a celebrity interview, and a political scandal--and submits them to intense analysis. Why are disaster stories often so uplifting? Why do we enjoy watching politicians being brought down? Why are upheavals in far-off lands often so boring? What makes the love lives of celebrities so interesting? De Botton has written the ultimate guide for our frenzied era, designed to bring calm, understanding, and a measure of sanity to a news-obsessed age.
When the first edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 1983, critics called Ben Bagdikian's warnings about the chilling effects of corporate ownership and mass advertising on the nation's news alarmist. Since then, the number of corporations controlling most of America's daily newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, book publishers, and movie companies has dwindled from fifty to ten to five.
The most respected critique of modern mass media ever issued is now published in a completely updated and revised twentieth anniversary edition. 'Ben Bagdikian has written the first great media book of the twenty-first century. The New Media Monopoly will provide a roadmap to understanding how we got here and where we need to go to make matters better.'-Robert McChesney, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy
"When it comes to infographics...the best work in this field grabs those eyes, keeps them glued, and the grip is sensual--and often immediate. A good graphic says 'See what I see ' and either you do or you don't. The best ones...pull you right in, and won't let you go."
--From the introduction by Robert Krulwich
ROBERT KRULWICH is the cohost of Radiolab and a science correspondent for NPR. He writes, draws, and cartoons at Curiously Krulwich, where he synthesizes scientific concepts into colorful, one-of-a-kind blog posts. He has won several Emmy awards for his work on television, and has been called "the most inventive network reporter in television" by TV Guide.
With Dot Complicated: Untangling Our Wired Lives, new media pioneer Randi Zuckerberg offers an entertaining and essential guide to understanding how technology and social media influence and inform our lives online and off.
Zuckerberg has been on the frontline of the social media movement since Facebook's early days and her following six years as a marketing executive for the company. Her part memoir, part how-to manual addresses issues of privacy, online presence, networking, etiquette, and the future of social change.
This book discusses two related themes concerning the role and processes of mass communication in society. The first deals with questions regarding the power of the media: how should it be defined? how is it wielded and by whom? are previous approaches and answers to such questions adequate? The second theme revolves around the divisions between the liberal pluralist and Marxist approaches to the analysis of the nature of the media. These divisions have, in recent years, been fundamental to the debate concerning the understanding of the role of mass communication, and the examination of them in this book will challenge the reader to look more closely at a number of assumptions that have long been taken for granted.
