Alone together, how is technology reshaping us?

I’m reading a truly impressive essay on the effects new technologies have on how we behave with each other and on how we perceive each other as well. The book is called “Alone Together” (the author is Sherry Turkle) and I can’t stop highlighting phrases on my Kindle. Some of the most catching: Overwhelmed by the volume and velocity of our lives, we turn to technology to help us find time. But technology makes us busier than ever and ever more in search of retreat. In virtual words and computer games, people are flattened into personae. On social networks, people are reduced to their profiles. Churchill said, “We shape our buildings and then they shape us.”23 We make our technologies, and they, in turn, shape us. I truly recommend this books. I think it is a must have for all those that work in this field, and also for everyone interested in understanding the side effects of social networking tools. Things are changing too fast and the risk is to forget our humanity in favour of speed and effectiveness and the illusion of a fake sociability.