Sherry Turkle

In 2018 she was featured among "America's Top 50 Women In Tech" by Forbes.

In June 2016, Turkle received an honorary doctorate degree from Concordia University.

Reclaiming Conversation (2015) is Turkle's examination of evolving interpersonal and intrapersonal communications, and The Power of Talk in A Digital Age. In the preamble, Turkle cites Henry David Thoreau's Walden as providing guidance for the structure of the book: "I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society." This book is thus divided into three general parts: a single chair for intrapersonal communication, two chairs concerning the importance of conversations in friendships, families and romances, and three chairs for interpersonal communication such as in school, work, and politics. Turkle gathered data from schools, companies, families, and articulates the statistical and psychoanalytic barriers that have forced users to "sacrifice conversation for mere connection". This trade-off in interwoven intimacies and apps ultimately withholds the necessary "face-to-face experiences that are needed for generating authentic connection".

In May 2015, Turkle received an Honorary Degree, Doctor of Science, from Franklin & Marshall College.

Turkle gave a TED talk on the subject of Alone Together in February 2012, under the title “Connected, but alone?”

Turkle has begun to assess the adverse effects of rapidly advancing technology on human social behavior. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other was published in 2011 and when discussing the topic she speaks about the need to limit the use of popular technological devices because of these adverse effects.

In Alone Together (2011), Turkle explores how technology is changing the way we communicate. In particular, Turkle raises concerns about the way in which genuine, organic social interactions become degraded through constant exposure to illusory meaningful exchanges with artificial intelligence. Underlying Turkle's central argument is the fact that the technological developments which have most contributed to the rise of inter-connectivity have at the same time bolstered a sense of alienation between people. The alienation involves links between social networks favouring those of proper conversations.

In 2011, Turkle was interviewed by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report, where she spoke briefly about Alone Together, and the impact that technology has on communication skills.

In Life on the Screen (1995), Turkle presents a study of how people's use of the computer has evolved over time, and the profound effect that this machine has on its users. The computer, which connects millions of people across the world together, is changing the way we think and see ourselves. Although it was originally intended to serve as a tool to help us to write and communicate with others, it has more recently transformed into a means of providing us with virtual worlds which we can step into and interact with other people. The book discusses how our everyday interactions with computers affect our minds and the way we think about ourselves.

In The Second Self (1984), Turkle defines the computer as more than just a tool, but part of our everyday personal and psychological lives. She looks at how computers affect the way we look at ourselves and our relationships with others, claiming that technology defines the way we think and act. Turkle's book allows us to view and reevaluate our own relationships with technology.

She was married to Seymour Papert from 1977 to 1985 and Ralph Willard from 1987 to 1998.

Sherry Turkle (born June 18, 1948) is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She obtained an BA in social studies and later a PhD in sociology and personality psychology at Harvard University. She now focuses her research on psychoanalysis and human-technology interaction. She has written several books focusing on the psychology of human relationships with technology, especially in the realm of how people relate to computational objects. Her latest book 'Empathy Diaries' her memoir received fair critical reviews.

Sherry Turkle was born in Brooklyn on June 18, 1948. After she graduated as a valedictorian from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1965, she began her studies at Radcliffe College, graduating in 1969 with a bachelor's degree in Social Studies. She then obtained a master's degree in sociology in 1973 and a doctorate in Sociology and Personality Psychology in 1976, both from Harvard University. Inspired by her time in France during her undergraduate years, she did her dissertation research in France, "writing about the relationship between Freudian thought and the modern French revolutionary movements." This relationship was also the subject of her first book, Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud's French Revolution. Turkle has been married twice, first to MIT researcher Seymour Papert, and then to consultant Ralph Willard. Both marriages ended in divorce.