A thought provoking interview with MIT Founder and Director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, Sherry Turkle.
Author of: Alone Together.
As a person who tries to find sabbath - and who loves the outdoors, I resonated with much of what I heard Ms. Turkle express. Here is a single excerpt from the Full Transcript.
Ms. Turkle: . . . I live on the Cape during the summer, and there are these magnificent dunes that I walk on the Cape. When you walk these dunes — and I've been walking them for years, I mean, decades of going to the Cape. And recently, people have their earphones in and are listening to their music. And more recently, people have their earphones in and are walking them with their handheld devices and are texting as they walk them.
Ms. Tippett: Right.
Ms. Turkle: So you're still getting your exercise. And I'm not saying that they're not looking up to, you know, notice anything. I mean, it's not for me to judge that nobody's noticing anything. But there's something about being attentive with the life you meet along those walks and with solitude.
Ms. Tippett: Right. So you're losing the experience of the dunes as a medium for self-realization, for example. I mean, I think that image of the dunes — I think that this idea of solitude is so central and so powerful in your writing, and we don't think about this very often. You know, this basic quality of human health and wholeness that comes with being able to feel at peace in your own company, right, as somebody said?.
Ms. Turkle: Yeah. There's a wonderful phrase. In psychology, it says, "If you don't teach your children to be alone, they'll only always know how to be lonely."
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