Just two text-ready words may have punctured the delusion of cyberspace 'connectedness' that has gripped a twittering new world: 'Alone Together'. They are the title of a book from a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has finally plucked up the courage to tell us something we all secretly know: we are losing our minds to a mania for the social media of Twitter, Facebook and instant messaging.

We are in danger of relinquishing our humanity to "social robotics" and a "new social confusion." We are swapping real life for vicarious life.

There have been warnings before from shrinks and sociologists, not to mention anyone with the commonsense to have got angry at those texting away under the dinner table or the idiot bumping into you because he is buried in his Blackberry.

But Professor Sherry Turkle's new book is the first to get the message through. Alone Together has sparked debate on where all this is taking us. The backlash has begun.

And so, of course, has the backlash to the backlash. Every book reviewer, commentator and reporter can, after all, be "reached on Twitter". The word Luddite buzzes through cyberspace.

However furiously the fingers tap the interactive screens, however, it is hard to dispute Turkle's argument.

Twitter & Facebook are driving us mad, says Professor