Left to Our Own Devices: Outsmarting Smart Technology to Reclaim Our Relationships, Health, and Focus PDF
Preview Left to Our Own Devices: Outsmarting Smart Technology to Reclaim Our Relationships, Health, and Focus
Left to Our Own Devices Left to Our Own Devices Outsmarting Smart Technology to Reclaim Our Relationships, Health, and Focus Margaret E. Morris Foreword by Sherry Turkle The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2018 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in Stone Serif by Westchester Publishing Ser vices. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Morris, Margaret E., author. Title: Left to our own devices : outsmarting smart technology to reclaim our relationships, health, and focus / Margaret E. Morris ; foreword by Sherry Turkle. Description: Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018013341 | ISBN 9780262039130 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Internet in psychotherapy. | Internet--Psychological aspects. | Internet--Social aspects. | Health. | Interpersonal relations. Classification: LCC RC489.I54 M67 2018 | DDC 616.89/14--dc23 LC record available at https: //lccn .loc .gov /2018013341 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To my brother Michael, who has always pushed me to move forward Contents Foreword by Sherry Turkle ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction xvii 1 The Meaning of Light 1 2 Conversational Catalysts 15 3 Meaningful Measures 35 4 Remembering and Forgetting 51 5 Beyond the Hookup 69 6 Picturing Ourselves 83 7 Micro Connections 101 8 Therapy, Virtually 111 Notes 133 Index 155 Foreword Sherry Turkle Margaret Morris and I would seem to be on opposite sides of an argument. I am a partisan of conversation. Morris is a maestro of apps. Readers of this book will learn that this is too simple a story. In real life, when you take the time to look closely, we all talk back to technology. Or want to. The most humane technology makes that easy. That puts a responsibility on designers. And on those of us who bring technology into our everyday lives. To make more humane technology, we have to make it our own in our own way. We can’t divide the world into builders and users. Digital culture needs participants, citizens. So if my plea to those who would build “empathy apps” has always been, “We, people, present, talking with each other, we are the empathy app,” both Morris and I would ask, “Well, how can we build technologies that encourage that conversation?” For many years, I have written about the power of evocative objects to provoke self-reflection. But some objects, and by extension, some technolo- gies, are more evocative than others. Left to Our Own Devices can be read as a primer for considering what might make for the most evocative technol- ogy. And if you suspect you have one in your hand, how might you best use it? You can reframe this question: If you are working with a technology that might close down important conversations, can it be repurposed to open them up? Indeed, my first encounter with Morris was in June 2005, when she wrote me about a technology that I was already worried about. The object in question was the robot, Paro, a sociable robot in the shape of a baby seal, designed to be a companion for the elderly. Paro gives the impression of understanding simple expressions of language and emotion.
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