I have begun reading Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other by Sherry Turkle and my head is full of conversations I wish I could have with the author.

In class and during "hangouts" I have expressed my concern over what I have seen in early childhood in children that are plugged in at a very early age.  I have cited statistics on lack of empathy and concern about changing brain development in young children who have excessive screen time daily.  Within the first few paragraphs of Turkle's book I felt someone was looking through my same lens, at a much deeper and higher level.

There is something about the lack of face-to-face interaction that allows some people to say the cruelest things.  Without the human reaction, the visual of their hurt, the bully can hide behind a computer monitor, and avoid the very real human response. Cyberbullying is a real issue.  My own daughter encountered it through AOL in the 90's.  I actually had her print out the transcript of her dialogue and brought it to the police it was so bad. Though cyberbullying is still an issue for educators to grapple with Turkle shines light on much bigger issues.

Turkle talks to people about family simulation games.  When my own marriage broke down I spent hours playing SIMS.  I created a family - mine- with the same parents and children and tried to make it work.  I pulled all nighters trying to get the parents to fall in love, and build relationships with my, Sims kids, and keep a clean house, meet neighbors, find a job, get up for work and make the kids breakfast and get them on the bus clean and fed.  It was absolutely impossible and I burned the SIM house down in a kitchen fire. Oh, and we had a ghost. It ended up being very therapeutic for me.  I could see that I was doing the impossible in real time, in real life, and having success at it.  I learned that yes, my marriage failed, but I would be ok, and so would my kids, because I continued to invest in them and could walk away from my temporary SIMS addiction and attend to real life. But the answers Turkle receives through asking questions of people of all ages is disturbing.  She states "People are lonely but afraid of intimacy" (p.18) so they substitute RL (real life) with a simulated life.

Turkle has done research with robotic pets with children, adolescents and adults.  Her thoughts often mirror my own.  She asks, why humans give affection or love to robots yet treat each other as things. Over the years I have thought about a similar concept.  Why are we so kind to strangers, friendly and helpful, yet come home and treat our family members with less than substandard treatment, or even abuse them?  Turkle's comments on her research bring technology into the same lens.  We will pet and coo at a talking cat on an ipod, and ignore the real cat at our feet. Turkle talks about Chatroulette where people are objectified and quickly discarded and she says, "We seem determined to give human qualities to objects and content to treat others as things." (14)

Part One - The Robotic Movement really blew my mind with dialogues about robots as mates and sex partners. Turkle interviewed many people who stated they would prefer a robot partner that could produce caring behavior and civility over a real relationship with another human being.  Relationships are messy and inconvenient and these people wanted a "no risk relationship." I find this heartbreaking on so many levels.  Yes, many, many people are lonely, in and out of relationships.  And sometimes being lonely in a relationship is more devastating than actually being alone.  But this idea that a robot simulating affection is good enough, is based on a very egocentric level.  These people are seeking a one way relationship.  A robot has no actual needs beyond being powered up.  So the human's needs are being met without having to compromise, problem solve, or actually give of themselves in any way.  What kind of human race would we become if this was the norm? I already see a decrease in empathy in 3 and 4 year olds entering pre-k.  What if they grow up playing with only robots, learning no social skills, and grow up to be in relationships with only robots?  What would happen to society when everyone's perspective is solely egocentric?

Turkle goes so far as to talk about sex with robots, allowing people to practice with robots, who could simulate every position known to mankind and beyond and thus be very fulfilling partners, and it would not be cheating as it isn't happening with another human. Wow. My mind started to wander to some pretty dark corners. Would having practice sex robots decrease crimes against women? Would rapists, pedophiles and murderers be satiated by a willing robotic victim?  I can't help but think of the case in Cleveland where Ariel Castro kept 3 young women captive and repeatedly abused them for 10 years before being caught. Would Castro have been happy with a sex victim robot?  We'll never know as he has ended his own life just this week.

 Turkel suggests the question to look at is not what computers do for us but what computers will do to us.  I will ponder that as I read on...