Analyzing Turtle's Book 'Alone Together'

I think Turtle’s book, Alone Together, is a challenging and enlightening book. In the first part of book, The Robotic Moment, the author discussed about if robots can make up for the inner loneliness of people by giving abundant examples and cases about digital creatures, sociable humanoid robots, and companionable robots. Some kinds of robots and related studies mentioned in this part are novel to me and also bring some new ideas. In the second part, Networked, the cases are closer to our daily life, which brings up the question if technology is pulling us close or pushing us apart. Most situations regarding the technology in the book are exactly happening around ourselves, and we even did not realize any problem until the author mentioned. I start to think about the …show more content…
Elders felt they were needed when getting companied with Paros. During my childhood, I feel I was a combination of both, a curious kid while as lonely as old people. I always watched TV for the whole day if no friends came to me during those long summer vacations when I was in primary school. Due to the one-child policy in China, I am the only child in family without any brothers or sisters. Both of my parents had to work, so I was always left alone at home. I even did not have a pet to company with me, since my parents were busy and they did not have extra time for a little creature other than me. The only way to entertain myself was watching TV. When I knew how intelligent and interesting Furby and Paro were through the book, I was so jealous. I wish I could have one to enrich my life when I was a kid. I definitely agree that robots would be good companion to lonely people. It is possible that people can be comforted by robots. However, I do not think the role of human in a relationship can be replaced by robot. My reasons are the same as the two key points given by the author as