Turkle's young daughter Rebecca suggests at the Natural History Museum that robots should replace the living Galápagos turtles on display.

As an MIT student, Turkle uses the computer program ELIZA and watches peers eagerly confess their secrets to it.

Turkle brings eight Furbies to an elementary school and observes children immediately trying to feed and communicate with them.

Sony introduces the robotic dog AIBO, and Turkle studies teenagers who care for it as devotedly as a real pet.

Fifth graders debate the pros and cons of robot babysitters, focusing on efficiency while largely dismissing emotional limitations.

Turkle meets the robot Cog at MIT and involuntarily finds herself wanting the robot to look at and favor her.

Turkle conducts a first-encounters study introducing children to the robots Cog and Kismet, observing how eagerly the children try to please them.

A therapeutic robot seal called Paro is introduced to nursing home residents, who interact with it happily.

Turkle attends a symposium titled Caring Machines: Artificial Intelligence in Eldercare and challenges researchers on the implications of the title.

A man named Rich participates in a Kismet experiment and gradually grows openly flirtatious with the robot.

Turkle recalls the wearable-technology enthusiasts called the cyborgs at MIT in the 1990s and notes that most people now live this tethered way.

A group of teenagers confesses to compulsively checking their phones while driving, despite knowing it is dangerous.

Turkle creates a Second Life avatar named Rachel to personally explore how virtual worlds shape a person's sense of identity.

Turkle examines the online confession site PostSecret and questions whether anonymous venting is genuinely the same as sharing.

Turkle concludes that robots and networked life prey on human vulnerabilities rather than genuine needs, meaning people retain a real choice.

Turkle's exploration begins with early computer programs like ELIZA and expands into sociable robots including Furbies, AIBO, and Cog, as she watches children and adults form unexpected emotional bonds with machines. Her research moves into eldercare, where robot companions are offered to nursing home residents, raising difficult questions about what it truly means to care for another. She then turns to the networked world of texting, social media, and virtual worlds, finding that constant digital connection creates its own peculiar form of isolation. Throughout, she gathers case studies of people who prefer the control of virtual relationships over the messiness of real ones. She concludes that robots and networked life prey on human vulnerabilities rather than genuine needs, which means people retain a real choice about how to proceed. The book ends with Turkle herself stepping back from digital communication and choosing to reconnect through older, more deliberate means.

The central arc of Turkle's research into robots and networked life.

A Scientific American reporter accuses Turkle of species chauvinism for reacting negatively to the idea of humans marrying machines.

Children mourn the deaths of their Tamagotchis, and one girl refuses to press reset after hers dies, buying new ones instead.

Researcher Freedom Baird proposes the upside-down test and finds that adults are uncomfortable holding a Furby upside down as it cries for help.

Hasbro releases My Real Baby without its pain responses enabled, fearing the feature could encourage sadistic behavior in children.

An MIT graduate student accidentally sits alone with the blindfolded humanoid robot Nexi and is deeply unsettled by the experience.

A girl tells Turkle that AIBO is easier than a real pet because she can simply turn it off whenever she wants to be alone.

Terminally ill seven-year-old Tucker uses his AIBO to voice his deepest fears about his failing body and the prospect of dying.

Elderly senior Andy names his My Real Baby doll and uses it to say things he can no longer say to his estranged ex-wife.

Robot designer Aaron Edsinger admits that when working with Domo he thinks of the machine as a creature with its own desires.

Performance artist Pia Lindman discovers she must invent genuine human emotions within herself to authentically portray the robot Domo.

Pete, unhappily married, maintains a virtual wife in Second Life and claims the arrangement actually improves his real-life relationship.

Sixteen-year-old Audrey admits she wishes a friend had said a real goodbye by phone or in person rather than by message.

Sherryl makes anonymous confessions on PostSecret regularly but feels no impulse to make real-world amends as a result.

Twenty-six-year-old Robin feels almost dizzy without her BlackBerry and tells Turkle her friend Joanne now publishes a public blog instead of writing personal emails.

Turkle discusses her book's themes with disabled colleague Richard, who insists human caregivers give him a dignity no robot could provide.

Beneath Turkle's central argument lie dozens of specific encounters that reveal how people of all ages respond to sociable technology. Children mourn Tamagotchis, adults squirm when a Furby cries out in distress, and an MIT graduate student is deeply unsettled after sitting alone with a blindfolded humanoid robot. The elderly form surprising attachments to robot dolls, robot designers confess to experiencing their creations as living creatures, and a performance artist discovers she must generate real human emotion in order to portray a robot convincingly. In the networked world, teenagers prefer texting to phone calls, find online confession insufficient for true atonement, and feel anxious when separated from their devices. These cases collectively build the portrait of a society already deeply enmeshed in what Turkle calls the robotic moment. Turkle's disabled colleague Richard provides a closing counterpoint, insisting that the errors and presence of human caregivers give him a dignity no robot could offer.

Supporting cases and secondary encounters that build Turkle's argument.

Turkle names the ELIZA effect after discovering that MIT students actively help ELIZA seem lifelike rather than being passively deceived by it.

A boy named Wilson tells Turkle he considers his Furby a genuine friend yet can always hear the machine inside it.

Turkle interviews Bruce in 1983 and Howard in 2008, revealing that human fallibility has shifted from an endearment to a liability.

Twelve-year-old Kevin challenges a group discussion by asking, if robots don't feel pain, how could they possibly comfort you?

Turkle concludes that many children's intense attachments to the robots Cog and Kismet reflect emotional neglect at home.

Eleven-year-old Neela bonds with the robot Cog because it offers love safe from rejection, unlike her fickle human peers.

Roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro builds a robot clone of himself, and his own daughter learns to treat the clone like her real father.

Tim tells Turkle the robot seal Paro makes his elderly mother seem livelier, but Turkle questions whether the woman is truly less alone.

Retired engineer Jonathan takes My Real Baby apart to inspect it, discovers an inscrutable chip, and eventually warms to the doll anyway.

Joel meets depressed Frenchwoman Noelle in Second Life and admits her depression feels more real to him than her nationality.

Turkle identifies the September 11 attacks as the moment when cell phones became symbols of emotional and physical safety for a generation of children.

Sixteen-year-old Julia gradually stops calling her estranged father, and four years pass before the two reconnect at all through email.

Eighteen-year-old Brad is unsettled to learn that a friend has saved years of their old instant message conversations as chat logs.

Students at the Fillmore School tell Turkle they long for letters or calls, with one student saying he misses those days even though he was not alive for them.

Turkle asks daughter Rebecca about life-capture technology, and Rebecca's reaction prompts them to plan a letter correspondence instead of texting.

Turkle's inquiry turns on a series of decisive moments and insights that progressively reframe how readers understand the human-technology relationship. From naming the ELIZA effect to watching a boy who simultaneously loves his Furby and can always hear the machine inside it, she identifies the complicity humans willingly bring to robotic relationships. A comparison between a child interviewed in 1983 and one in 2008 reveals a generational shift in how people value human imperfection. In the second half, pivotal moments include a generation shaped by the September 11 communication blackout, a teenager who drifts away from her father through silence and avoidance, and a young man alarmed to discover his digital past preserved without his knowledge. Turkle traces how these moments collectively erode solitude, spontaneity, and authentic selfhood. The book closes with Turkle and her daughter choosing to begin a letter correspondence as a small but deliberate act of resistance against the thinning of genuine connection.

The key insights, discoveries, and emotional shifts that define Turkle's argument.