Life on the Screen discusses the changes over the past few decades in the ways that people interact with computers. People used to look at computers simply as giant calculators, but now they are much more than that to a lot of people. Turkle talks a lot about how our interactions with computers and the Internet lead us to reexamine our identities.

     Through the Internet, people can have unique experiences that aren’t available anywhere else. They can create several personalities and have conversations, relationships, even cyber-marriage with others that they will never see face to face. One opportunity for this is in MUDs (Multi-User Domains), which are virtual spaces in which people can have conversations, navigate, and build. One male college student who poses simultaneously in different MUDs as a flirtatious woman, a macho guy, a rabbit, and another furry animal, says, “I split my mind … I can see myself as being two or three or more. … Real life is just one more window, and it’s not usually my best one.” Many people love the ability to be whoever they want to be and act however they choose, not seeming to mind that this virtual life they lead sitting at a computer has replaced “real life” as it is traditionally defined.

     Video games are another type of media that allows people to alter their identities. Although when video games first started to become popular they were based on straightforward scenarios with clear rules, they are now more like “living inside a puzzle” than solving one. Video games cause people to pretend that they are doing things like developing cities, fighting in war, and exploring strange worlds. Some view this as an over-reliance on simulations, but others see it as a chance to challenge accepted assumptions and learn about reality.

     Turkle also discussed the social implications of bots, computer programs that present themselves as humans in MUDs. Through several accounts of conversations with a bot named Julia, Turkle showed that bots are capable of showing personality, having opinions, and flirting, and some people do not even realize that they are not actually people when talking to them. There were many different reactions to Julia, ranging from a thrill of superiority upon finding out she was a bot, to disappointment that even though she seems real, she is not. One person said that Julia was not fulfilling because she wanted to have REAL relationships, with empathy and feeling, and although Julia can say all the right things, she is still just programmed. Bot-developers have been striving to make bots that are so realistic that one cannot tell whether or not they are actually real.

     One more scenario that Life on the Screen presented was the option to be psychoanalyzed and advised by a computer instead of a psychologist. It discussed people’s opinion about this idea over the past thirty years and how our society’s outlook on it has changed. When software of this nature first came out, many people were adamantly against it because it was another way to replace human interaction, relationship, and understanding with technology that gives the false impression that it cares and understands. A person who felt this way said, “There are certain sorts of questions which ought not be asked of dolphins and there are certain sorts of questions which ought not be asked of computers.” However, Turkle wrote that by the 90s most people didn’t see any harm in the idea of psychologist software at all. People were a lot less pessimistic about it and very willing to try it. Life on the Screen showed how our culture’s views on several computer-related issues like this one have drastically changed over just a few years.

     The material in Life on the Screen is very current and relevant to life today, although there are probably many more recent technologies that would be interesting to examine as well.

     Sherry Turkle possesses many credentials that suggest her expertise on these subjects. She is currently a Professor of the Sociology of Science at MIT and Director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. She received a joint doctorate in Sociology and Personality Psychology from Harvard University and is a graduate and affiliate member of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and a licensed clinical psychologist. Among other honors, she was selected as a member of Newsweek Magazine's “50 for the Future: the Most Influential People to Watch in Cyberspace.” Turkle did not appear to have many biases, as this book did not argue many controversial opinions, but instead presented the results of studies she has conducted and her analysis. Her worldview did not seem apparent through her writing.

     This book was not presented in a very opinionated way, but the topics discussed provoked thought. Personally, Life on the Screen made me reflect upon the fact that we try to produce through technology the interactions with people and fulfillment of relationships that we lack … even though that can never be found there. This is in slight disagreement with Turkle who doesn’t seem to be too worried about the overuse of these technologies. She said that, “It is that yearning for the human touch that will preserve roles and functions that ought to belong in the human domain.” She also responded in an interview that she dislikes the phrase “Internet addiction” because addiction implies an unhealthy reliance on “bad” things, which the Internet is not. Turkle views the Internet as a chance for people to grow, learn, and discover new potential — something that can never be used too much. I disagree with her on that one, because even good things can be used in excess; we need to carefully assess the social impact of dependency on these types of technologies.