If we're not able to be alone, we're going to be more lonely. And if we don't teach our children to be alone, they're only going to know how to be lonely.

Turkle draws a sharp distinction between solitude and loneliness. Solitude is a learned capacity: being able to sit with one’s thoughts, regulate emotion, and develop an inner life without constant external stimulation or validation. Loneliness, by contrast, is the distress that can arise when connection is absent but still craved. The quote warns that if people never practice being alone—often because technology offers perpetual contact and distraction—they may become more dependent on others to manage discomfort, which paradoxically deepens loneliness. Her point about children extends this into a cultural critique: without teaching solitude, we risk raising people who equate aloneness with abandonment rather than with reflection and self-possession.