The definitive expert in her field, Sherry Turkle has been studying people’s changing relationships with digital culture for three decades. She is Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT and the founder (2001) and current director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. An accomplished author, her latest book “Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other” (Basic Books, January 2011,) explores technology’s influence on our interpersonal relationships, calling for society to reexamine and redefine our basis human connections.
Profiles of Professor Turkle have appeared in such publications as The New York Times, Scientific American, and Wired Magazine. She is a featured media commentator on the social and psychological effects of technology for CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, the BBC, and NPR, including appearances on such programs as Nightline, Frontline, 20/20 and The Colbert Report.
Turkle offers a unique perspective on technology and social interaction, and on the psychological dimensions of technological change. Her work investigates the intersection of digital technology and human relationships, from the early days of personal computers to our current world of robotics, artificial intelligence, social networking and mobile connectivity. Turkle’s exploration into our lives on the digital terrain shows how technological advancement doesn’t just catalyze changes in what we do – it affects how we think.
Education
Professor Turkle received a joint doctorate in sociology and personality psychology from Harvard University and is a licensed clinical psychologist. She has been studying our changing relationships with digital culture for over three decades, charting how mobile technology, social networking, and sociable robotics are changing our work, families, and identity
Awards
World Economic Forum Fellow
2002 - Named one of the Top Ten Wired Women by ABC News.com
2000 - Named one of Time Magazine's Innovators of the Internet
1995 - Selected Member of "50 for the Future: the Most Influential People to Watch in Cyberspace," Newsweek Magazine
1984 - Selected "Woman of the Year," Ms. Magazine
Publications/Books
Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other , (Basic Books, January 2011)
Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (Simon and Schuster, 1995; Touchstone paper, 1997)
Simulation and Its Discontents (MIT Press, 2009).
The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit (Simon and Schuster, 1984; Touchstone paper, 1985; second revised edition, MIT Press, 2005);
Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud's French Revolution (Basic Books, 1978; MIT Press paper, 1981; second revised edition, Guilford Press, 1992);
