Life on the Screen by Sherry Turkle 1995 Laymans Review by 'Winnie'

Sherry Turkle, a psychologist and sociologist, has been studying computer culture and the computer's influence on how we look at the questions of the self and identity. Her book, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, examines the above and takes the plunge into ‘cyberia’.

The essence of the book is a lot of psychology, a lot of philosophy, a lot of computer science, a lot of interviews, a lot of stories, and a lot of people telling how they think and how they feel about their computers and what their computers do. If you haven't heard these stories on life on the electronic frontier, then you certainly should do. Turkle's book is a very good introduction and covers a wide range of topics. She uses these interviews to provide a wealth of fascinating illustrative anecdotes to flesh out her main thesis. So put aside the psychology, put aside the computer science, put aside the philosophy, then by all means read the book. It is very well written and very readable.

She has gathered the material for this book by means of interviews with a wide cross section of users. The inclusion of adults and children in a single study should be praised, as it is a rare occurrence. While it should be noted, Turkle is talking about the white netizen, and a limited set of the white netizens: middle to upper class, educated, usually male - the netizen who unfortunately made up most of the Net during her field work (a sign of the times rather than a criticism).

How much of our lives, in the future, will be lead on the screen? What effects will living multiple lives on the screen have on our sense of identity? These are deep and difficult questions. Sherry Turkle should be commended for raising them.

At the bargain price of just under £8 in the UK and just over $11 in the US (prices taken from Amazon at time of writing) this is definitely one for your Christmas Wish List – The perfect stocking filler – logon and buy your copy now – don’t enter cyberspace without it!