Alone Together

Digibesity books and articles: Alone Together, by Sherry Turkle
Sherry explores where technology is taking us and how society adapts to answer new questions brought on by the rise of mobile technologies, robots, computers, and other electronic gadgets. In particular, Turkle raises concerns about the way in which genuine, organic social interactions become degraded through constant exposure to illusory meaningful exchanges with artificial intelligence. Underlying Turkle’s central argument is the fact that the technological developments which have most contributed to the rise of inter-connectivity have at the same time bolstered a sense of alienation between people.
See more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherry_Turkle

Yes smartphones are useful

Of course the new  technologies are great and allow to do us so much and more efficiently. But they should remain tools and not replace our human life.
See this excellent article:
“Hooked on our smartphones”
By Jane E. Brody – 9 January 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/well/live/hooked-on-our-smartphones.html

Extract:
The near-universal access to digital technology, starting at ever younger ages, is transforming modern society in ways that can have negative effects on physical and mental health, neurological development and personal relationships, not to mention safety on our roads and sidewalks.

“Why We Can’t Look Away From Our Screens”

Interview with author Adam Alter by Claudia Dreifus, 6 March 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/science/technology-addiction-irresistible-by-adam-alter.html

In a new book, “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked,” the social psychologist Adam Alter warns that many of us — youngsters, teenagers, adults — are addicted to modern digital products. Not figuratively, but literally addicted.

More about the book:
Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked
by Adam Alter
Intro Barnes & Noble:
Welcome to the age of behavioral addiction—an age in which half of the American population is addicted to at least one behavior. We obsess over our emails, Instagram likes, and Facebook feeds; we binge on TV episodes and YouTube videos; we work longer hours each year; and we spend an average of three hours each day using our smartphones. Half of us would rather suffer a broken bone than a broken phone, and Millennial kids spend so much time in front of screens that they struggle to interact with real, live humans.
In this revolutionary book, Adam Alter, a professor of psychology and marketing at NYU, tracks the rise of behavioral addiction, and explains why so many of today’s products are irresistible. Though these miraculous products melt the miles that separate people across the globe, their extraordinary and sometimes damaging magnetism is no accident. The companies that design these products tweak them over time until they become almost impossible to resist.