Sherry Turkle (b. 1948), professor of the social studies of science and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University. She is the author of many...

Sherry Turkle (b. 1948), professor of the social studies of science and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University. She is the author of many books, including Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit (1984); Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (1995); and Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (2011). Turkle’s most recent book is Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in the Digital Age (2015), and she has given a TED talk and hosts a podcast on the same topic. Turkle is a media commentator on the social and psychological effects of technology. The article below was published in the Sunday Review section of the New York Times in 2012.

Before you read, think about how much time you spend communicating with friends and family via “texting and e-mail and posting” (par. 10) versus how much time you spend talking with friends and family over the phone or faceto-face.

As you read, pay attention to the kinds of evidence Turkle provides to support her assertions, such as quotations from interviews and written sources, examples, statistics, illustrations, and so on.