Devices Become You iPhone

Sociologist Sherry Turkle on digital infatuations, Google and the iPhone

Do you love your cellphone? Your laptop? And--be honest now--did you ever expect to have an emotional relationship with a gadget?

Sherry Turkle figured you would. Turkle, a psychoanalytically-trained sociologist and psychologist who teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has spent decades studying technology's effect on relationships and one's sense of self. Her favorite mantra: We think with objects we love. We love objects we think with.

Her most recent book, The Inner History of Devices, is a collection of memoirs, ethnographies and clinical cases that examine the strong attachments that people form with technology and gadgets. Stories about those who view the world through a prosthetic eye, a young woman passionately attached to a particular ringtone, devotees of the tech site Slashdot.org or video-poker addicts all carry lessons about the role of technology in society.

Forbes.com spoke with Turkle about her recent work with teens and cellphones, the role that technology played in the recent presidential election and whether Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) really is making us stupid.

Forbes.com: This is your sixth book and one of three that examine the intense associations people have with devices. Where does The Inner History fit in

Sherry Turkle: I've been studying computers and technology since 1976. Computers are evocative objects. People become wedded to their MacBooks. I wanted to make the point that this connection, this sense that your life and well-being is enmeshed in technology, isn't just for computers.

This is really a methodology book. I tried to create something that would put people in the right state of mind to do this kind of work. I call it intimate ethnography--a combination of participant observation with a clinician's tradition of listening and the kind of intimacy you get from memoir.