Other Reviews

New York Times review
"At times, Ms. Turkle can sound primly sanctimonious, complaining for instance that the sight at a local cafe of people focused on their computers and smartphones as they drink their coffee bothers her: “These people are not my friends,” she writes, “yet somehow I miss their presence.” Such sentimental whining undermines the larger and important points she wants to make in this volume — the notion that technology offers the illusion of companionship without the demands of intimacy and communication without emotional risk, while actually making people feel lonelier and more overwhelmed."

Another New York Times review
"The reason robots are such a slippery slope, according to Turkle, is that they take advantage of a deeply human instinct. When it comes to the perception of other minds, we are extremely gul­lible, bestowing agency on even the most inanimate of objects."
"Her obvious objections shouldn't obscure the real mystery: If the Internet is such an alienating force, then why can't we escape it?...I certainly don't expect Turkle to have all the answers, but her ethnographic portraits would have benefited from a more probing investigation of such questions."

GoodReads reviews
"It’s a nuanced...argument that, despite the hand-waving of today’s self-described prophets of the future, it will be the next generation who will chart the path between isolation and connectivity."

The Guardian review
"face-to face with the one-time 'cyber-diva' whom some now call a 'techno-phobe'"
"As a human, within seconds of meeting her in person, I can interpret the complexities of her mood – the tired part, and the happy to be here part. "This is a complex dance that we know how to do to each other," she says. A dance she fears is being forgotten."

Another Guardian review
"Plainly, technology is doing peculiar things to us."
"Turkle is not a luddite, nor is Alone Together a salvo in some analogue counter-reformation. But it does add to a growing body of cyber-sceptic literature"
"Turkle is a psychoanalyst by training and her instinct is to describe unfamiliar social habits as pathologies. She tends to revel in the more neurotic cases among her subjects and to gloss over happier experiences of technology, although she rarely lets clinical jargon infect her prose."