Sherry Turkle argues that our digital devices are quietly rewriting the human experience
In short: For decades, MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle has tracked how technology acts as the architect of our intimacies. She warns that by choosing digital connection over the friction of real-world conversation, we are losing essential human capacities like empathy, resilience, and the ability to navigate the uncertainty of life.
Sherry Turkle, an Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor at MIT and a licensed clinical psychologist, has spent her career investigating the subjective side of our relationship with technology. Since her 1984 debut, The Second Self, she has documented a shift where computers moved from being mere tools to becoming extensions of our psychological lives. Her work suggests that we are increasingly drawn to the illusion of companionship offered by digital platforms, which provide connection without the messy demands of true intimacy.
In her research, Turkle highlights how we frequently opt for technological substitutions—such as texting instead of calling—because they feel more efficient. However, she argues that this preference for friction-free interaction causes us to forget the value of what we lose. By avoiding difficult conversations and relying on chatbots or social media, we risk devaluing authentic experience. Her 2026 book, Artificial Intimacy, further explores how these machines reshape us from childhood to adulthood, teaching us to sidestep grief and deny the risks inherent in human connection.
Turkle’s perspective is deeply informed by her own history. Her memoir, The Empathy Diaries, traces her childhood in a family defined by a regime of pretend, which made her acutely sensitive to the divide between curated surfaces and hidden realities. Living through the pandemic, she observed how our reliance on screens mirrored the confinement of captive animals, leading to a diminished internal existence. She advocates for reclaiming conversation as a humanizing cure, urging us to recognize that digital technology is still in its infancy and that we retain the power to reshape how we build and use it.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Sherry Turkle’s Plugged-In Year | The New Yorker
- Also: Sherry Turkle | Speaker | TED
- Also: Sherry Turkle - MIT STS
- Also: Sherry Turkle
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