I am so torn as I write this post. Part of me doesn't want to waste one more second of one more minute thinking about Alone Together. The other part of me just has to share more outrage. Today we talked about Alone Together at work. Kara, my super-brilliant friend brought up something that I never even thought of, but it was so true.
She said that from a scientific perspective, the experiments in the book were flawed. And man....listen...she is so right!
Okay.
So little kids are given a Furby. (pages 43-44 and a lot more. A LOT MORE. Perhaps the most words ever written about a Furby are contained in this book.) They are captivated, as Turkle tells us. And Turkle is apaulled. Blah. Blah. Blah. BUT maybe part of the Furby fascination is because the kids are told this is part of a big experiment. Kara told of her own kids' experiences with a Furby. They got it, they looked at it, they played with it for about fifteen minutes. It was forgotten. So I started asking around, other people, who had kids who had Furbies. These were people who had not read Alone Together, so they didn't know why I was asking. Again. Same deal. Furby. Forgotten.
Kara also pointed out another experiment that was flawed.
In Alone Together, Turkle and her good-looking gang are dismayed to see that when they give a grandma a doll, the grandma starts paying more attention to the doll than her great-granddaughter.
Kara pointed out that all of these pleasant-looking people and Turkle were there to watch how this woman interacted with a doll, naturally the woman is going to want to "do well" on the observation and pay attention to the doll! (pages 116-120) Would she have paid the doll as much attention if she were not being observed? There is no way to know. Thus, a faulty experiment!
It was so good to talk to someone who thought this book was junk but for a lot of different reasons!
Okay. I swear I am done with this!
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