The computer is a mind machine. It doesn't have its own psychology, but in a way it presents itself as though it does.

We're in partnership with technology, influencing each other in a dance. My loyalties are to our making and shaping technology to conform to our human values; and to confronting the hard job of figuring out what those values are, and how are we're going to get technology to do that.

What is so seductive about texting, about keeping that phone on, about that little red light on the BlackBerry, is you want to know who wants you.

Because you can text while doing something else, texting does not seem to take time but to give you time. This is more than welcome; it is magical.

Everyone is always having their attention divided between the world of the people [they're] with and this other reality.

Human relationships are rich and they're messy and they're demanding. And we clean them up with technology. Texting, email, posting, all of these things let us present the self as we want to be. We get to edit, and that means we get to delete, and that means we get to retouch, the face, the voice, the flesh, the body -- not too little, not too much, just right.

If you're happy with where the Internet, Facebook, and Twitter have taken you, I'm not the Grinch. Someone called me Sherry Turkle's "evil Luddite twin." I'm not that. I enjoy the bounties of this technology. But if you fear that your connected life is running away with you, read the book, reflect, talk to your family and friends. I think we deserve better than some of the places that we've gotten with this technology.