New Animation Explains Sherry Turkle’s Theories on Why Social Media Makes Us Lonely

Last fall Sher­ry Turkle, an MIT psy­chol­o­gist who explores how tech­nol­o­gy shapes mod­ern rela­tion­ships, pub­lished Alone Togeth­er: Why We Expect More from Tech­nol­o­gy and Less from Each Oth­er. The third in a tril­o­gy of books, Alone Togeth­er tries to make sense of a para­dox. The more friends and acquain­tances we gath­er on social plat­forms like Face­book and Twit­ter, the more we feel alone. We’re con­nect­ed to oth­er peo­ple more than ever, and yet we feel iso­lat­ed in a new soli­tude. If you’re look­ing for a primer on Turkle’s think­ing, you can watch a new ani­ma­tion (above) cre­at­ed by Shi­mi Cohen. It was made as a final project for a course tak­en at Shenkar Col­lege of Engi­neer­ing and Design in Tel Aviv. Anoth­er way to get up to speed on Turkle’s think­ing is to watch Turkle’s own TED Talk record­ed in Feb­ru­ary, 2012. Find it right below. And, of course, you could always read her book, Alone Togeth­er, in print or dig­i­tal for­mat. A nov­el idea that.

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