When Gadgets Get under Your Skin

After all, to a certain extent, cyborgs are already among us--think of your uncle’s pacemaker. But there’s obviously a difference between elective, versus life-saving, implantation of technology. Where, if anywhere, do we draw the line?

Turkle’s most startling comment to New Scientist is that in some ways, people already behave as though they were cyborgs, as though their smart phones were essentially semi-externalized parts of themselves, like the daemons in The Golden Compass. "People literally cannot be without this device," Turkle said. "They don't feel the same when they are not connected. We live with our phones as if they are part of our body."

Turkle’s ambivalence about technology is about as well thought out as anyone’s--her book Alone Together is a good place to start, if you're troubled by our incipient cyborgism. Last year, she told me in an interview that while the iPhone was

View the Original article