Alone Together Lopatin Summary

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Stamford University professor, Peter Lopatin, reviews MIT professor and psychologist, Sherry Turkle’s book Alone Together as well as supports the ideas and opinions in the book. Peter Lopatin reviews how Turkle's opinion on the use of personal computing changes from her previous book, The Second Shelf to her more recent book, Alone Together. Lopatin uses evidence from the text to support his view on Turkle’s change of stance on the subject of personal computing. Loptain illustrates, “A decade later, Turkle was beginning to observe that some people “found online life more satisfying than what some derisively called ‘RL,’ that is, real life”” (Lopatin). Lopatin claims, “Turkle's earlier optimism about the transformative power of digital technologies …show more content…

Using the E-Personality as an example of the negative effects of personal computing, Loptain introduces a new source, psychiatrist, Elias Aboujaoude in his review to give more background to the E-Personality. Lopatin uses Aboujaoude’s book Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers of The E-Personality. Lopatin reports, “Aboujaoude observes that many of his patients have assumed online personalities that bear little resemblance to themselves” (Lopatin). On the negative effects of the E-Personality, Lopatin documents, “Internet use has come to “interfere with our home lives, our romantic relationships, our careers, our parenting abilities — and our very concept of who we are”” (Lopatin). To give an explanation, Lopatin explains the story of Jill, a patient of Aboujaoude’s. Jill is suffering from a social anxiety disorder and isn’t responding to other treatments. Aboujaoude has Jill create an online dating profile and create a persona different from who she really is. Through this profile Jill is able to get past her social anxiety and talk to other people. However, Lopatin reports that Jill is unable to hold the relationship when made to meet the other person in real life. From this case Lopatin explains, “Deceptions like the ones evident in this case can also be found in many people who use online communities like Second Life…” (Lopatin). Loptain describes how the E-Personality affects people in real life by showing changes in personality. Lopatin explains how Aboujaoude sees the changes in his patient's real-life personalities from their E-Personalities and how it affects them negatively by the patients showing signs of grandiosity, narcissism, viciousness, impulsivity, and infantile regression in their

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