Top 106 Quotes & Sayings by Sherry Turkle

I am a partisan for conversation. To make room for it, I see some first, deliberate steps. At home, we can create sacred spaces: the kitchen, the dining room. We can make our cars 'device-free zones.' We can demonstrate the value of conversation to our children. And we can do the same thing at work.

I think computers are the ultimate writing tool. I'm a very slow writer, so I appreciate it every day.

I have to fight the impulse to use my phone as an alarm clock rather than leaving it in another room. If I don't, I will wake up in the middle of the night and think, 'I'll check my messages. Or the number of my book on Amazon.'

Face-to-face conversation unfolds slowly. It teaches patience.

What is so seductive about texting, about keeping that phone on, about that little red light on the BlackBerry, is you want to know who wants you.

I think few people of education enter politics because it seems like a contact blood sport.

In solitude, we find ourselves; we prepare ourselves to come to conversation with something to say that is authentic, ours.

It used to be that people had a way of dealing with the world that was basically, 'I have a feeling, I want to make a call.' Now I would capture a way of dealing with the world, which is: 'I want to have a feeling, I need to send a text.'

The selfie, like all technology, causes us to reflect on our human values. This is a good thing because it challenges us to figure out what they really are.

If people start to buy the idea that machines are great companions for the elderly or for children, as they increasingly seem to do, we are really playing with fire.

Boredom is your imagination calling to you.

What I'm seeing is a generation that says consistently, 'I would rather text than make a telephone call.' Why? It's less risky. I can just get the information out there. I don't have to get all involved; it's more efficient. I would rather text than see somebody face to face.

If you're constantly stimulated by being called away to the buzzing and the excitement of what's on your phone, solitude seems kind of scary.

Technology doesn't just do things for us. It does things to us, changing not just what we do but who we are.

We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.

Technology challenges us to look at our human values. We can try to use technology to cure Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, which would be a blessing, but that blessing is not a reason to move from artificial brain enhancement to artificial intimacy.

There are moments of opportunity for families; moments they need to put technology away. These include: no phones or texting during meals. No phones or texting when parents pick up children at school - a child is looking to make eye contact with a parent!

People thought I was very pro-computer. I was on the cover of 'Wired' magazine. Then things began to change. In the early '80s, we met this technology and became smitten like young lovers. But today our attachment is unhealthy.

You'll always feel lonely if you always need validation. People don't like to be around those kinds of people.

Hold on to your passion - you'll need it!

Thumbs up or thumbs down on a website is not a conversation. The danger is you get into a habit of mind where politics means giving a thumbs up or thumbs down to a website. The world is a much more complex place.

Teenagers talk about the idea of having each other's 'full attention.' They grew up in a culture of distraction. They remember their parents were on cell phones when they were pushed on swings as toddlers. Now, their parents text at the dinner table and don't look up from their BlackBerry when they come for end-of-school day pickup.

A selfie, like any photograph, interrupts experience to mark the moment. In this, it shares something with all the other ways we break up our day: when we text during class, in meetings, at the theater, at dinners with friends.

It used to be that we imagined that our mobile phones would be for us to talk to each other. Now, our mobile phones are there to talk to us.

I've been studying the psychology of online connectivity for more than 30 years.

I am a single mum. I raised my daughter, and she was very listened to.

It is painful to watch children trying to show off for parents who are engrossed in their cell phones. Children are nostalgic for the 'good old days' when parents used to read to them without the cell phone by their side or watch football games or Disney movies without having the BlackBerry handy.

If we don't know how to be alone, we'll only know how to be lonely.

Conversation is the most human and humanizing thing that we do.

When I grew up, I lived in a neighborhood that had social clubs. It's never delightful to glamorize one's youth. My neighborhood was poor. But people felt part of the neighborhood. This was in Rockaway Beach, Long Island.

My highest value is not that the trains are on time. I want to be free.

Our mobile devices are so powerful that they don't just change what we do, they're changing who we are.

I think that we live in techno-enthusiastic times. We celebrate our technologies because people are frightened by the world we've made.

The selfie makes us accustomed to putting ourselves and those around us 'on pause' in order to document our lives. It is an extension of how we have learned to put our conversations 'on pause' when we send or receive a text, an image, an email, a call.

I love sharing photographs and websites, I'm for all of these things. I'm for Facebook. But to say that this is sociability? We begin to define things in terms of what technology enables and technology allows.

In life, you are struck by the importance of presence, of the small moments of meaning, the miracle of your child's breath, the feelings of deep human connection. When you are thinking about technology, your mind is not on all of that.

We are inhibited from aggression by the presence of another face, another person. We're aware that we're with a human being. On the Internet, we are disinhibited from taking into full account that we are in the presence of another human being.

Everybody wants a robot that will do psychotherapy. But If you don't have empathy, you don't have psychotherapy. The robot doesn't know about life.

We think constant connection will make us feel less lonely. The opposite is true.

Teenagers would rather text than talk. They feel calls would reveal too much.

The most used program in computers and education is PowerPoint. What are you learning about the nature of the medium by knowing how do to a great PowerPoint presentation? Nothing. It certainly doesn't teach you how to think critically about living in a culture of simulation.

I am not anti-technology; I am pro-conversation.

Technology challenges us to assert our human values, which means that first of all, we have to figure out what they are.

It all stems from the same thing - which is that when we are face to face - and this is what I think is so ironic about Facebook being called Facebook, because we are not face to face on Facebook ... when we are face to face, we are inhibited by the presence of the other. We are inhibited from aggression by the presence of another face, another person. We're aware that we're with a human being. On the Internet, we are disinhibited from taking into full account that we are in the presence of another human being.

These days, when people are alone, or feel a moment of boredom, they tend to reach for a device. In a movie theater, at a stop sign, at the checkout line at a supermarket and, yes, at a memorial service, reaching for a device becomes so natural that we start to forget that there is a reason, a good reason, to sit still with our thoughts: It does honor to what we are thinking about. It does honor to ourselves.

What technology makes easy is not always what nurtures the human spirit.

Computers are not good or bad; they are powerful.

If we don't teach kids how to be alone, they will end up only lonely.

We're too busy communicating to think, too busy communicating to connect, and sometimes we're too busy communicating to create. This is true for individuals and also true for organizations.

Networked, we are together, but so lessened are our expectations of each other that we can feel utterly alone. And there is the risk that we come to see others as objects to be accessed—and only for the parts we find useful, comforting, or amusing.

We're lonely, but we're afraid of intimacy. And so from social networks to sociable robots, we're designing technologies that will give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship.

Technology is seductive when what it offers meets our human vulnerabilities. And as it turns out, we are very vulnerable indeed. We are lonely but fearful of intimacy. Digital connections and the sociable robot may offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. Our networked life allows us to hide from each other, even as we are tethered to each other. We’d rather text than talk.

We expect more from technology and less from each other.

Not every advance is progress. Not every new thing is better for us humanly.

The feeling that 'no one is listening to me' make us want to spend time with machines that seem to care about us.

Human relationships are rich and they're messy and they're demanding. And we clean them up with technology. We sacrifice conversation for mere connection.

People are lonely. The network is seductive. But if we are always on, we may deny ourselves the rewards of solitude.

Technology proposes itself as the architect of our intimacies.

We expect more from technology and less from each other. We create technology to provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship.

Human relationships are rich and they're messy and they're demanding. And we clean them up with technology. Texting, email, posting, all of these things let us present the self as we want to be. We get to edit, and that means we get to delete, and that means we get to retouch, the face, the voice, the flesh, the body -- not too little, not too much, just right.