Turkle, Sherry. The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Chapter One
The computer is psychological, yet a thing. Sherry observed children playing with computer toys and listened to their theorizing.
Why the Computer Disturbs
Children's encounters with ideas like self-reference, infinity, and paradox are disturbing and exciting and made more mysterious by ambiguious responses from parents.
Children's "animism" (giving life to all objects) is common until they learn to tell the difference. 'We are drawn to what frightens us, we play with what disturbs us, in part to try to reassert our control over it". p. 34
People often want to maintain the illusion that the computer is alive (eg. ELIZA). Children play with and manipulate objects to get a sense of control over their powers. They want it to seem alive so they can be in a position to bring it under control. If it scares you, make a theory. p. 42
A New Disorder " Are Smart Machines Alive"?
The more contact children have with computational objects, the more nuanced and elaborated this psychological language becomes. "As the world of traditional objects serves as material for a child's construction of the physical, the computer serves as a stimulus to the construction of the psychological." p. 50
Like adults, children may anthropomorphize the computer but don't grant them the dignity of life. p. 55
Adolescence and Identity: Finding Yourself in the Machine
Adolescents "try on" ideas about politics, religion, and psychology to test and develop emergent ideas of self. While some become computer experts, most use programming as a canvas for personal expression and then as a context for working through personal concerns. They use the computer as a constructive as well as a projective medium.
For children " their style of working with the machine expresses something of who they are, giving thema chance to see themselves in the mirror of the medium. At the same time, they can use the experience as an occasion to experiment with who they are not." p. 138
"what is on the screen is only a small part of what is going on in the relationship with the computer" p. 141
"The computer offers the mixture of being alone and yet not feeling alone" p. 146
Mirrors, literal and metaphorical, play an important part in human development. In literature, music, visual art, or computer programming, they allow us to see ourselves from the outside, and to objectify aspects of ourselves whe had perceived only from within".
People, in their first computer experiences, often begin to ponder the concept of mind as machine, personality as program.
People are also beginning to use computational language as a language for self-reference and analysis.
Chapter 6: Hackers - Loving the Machine for Itself