Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age

by Sherry Turkle

We had talk enough, but no conversation. —SAMUEL JOHNSON, THE RAMBLER (1752)

There is now a word in the dictionary called “phubbing.” It means maintaining eye contact while texting.

From the early days, I saw that computers offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship and then, as the programs got really good, the illusion of friendship without the demands of intimacy.

Conversation is on the path toward the experience of intimacy, community, and communion. Reclaiming conversation is a step toward reclaiming our most fundamental human values.

In solitude we find ourselves; we prepare ourselves to come to conversation with something to say that is authentic, ours. When we are secure in ourselves we are able to listen to other people and really hear what they have to say. And then in conversation with other people we become better at inner dialogue.

Solitude reinforces a secure sense of self, and with that, the capacity for empathy. Then, conversation with others provides rich material for self-reflection. Just as alone we prepare to talk together, together we learn how to engage in a more productive solitude.

Afraid of being alone, we struggle to pay attention to ourselves. And what suffers is our ability to pay attention to each other. If we can’t find our own center, we lose confidence in what we have to offer others.

We face a flight from conversation that is also a flight from self-reflection, empathy, and mentorship—the virtues of Thoreau’s three chairs. But this flight is not inevitable. When the virtuous circle is broken, conversation cures.

If we are unable to be alone, we will be more lonely. And if we don’t teach our children to be alone, they will only know how to be lonely.

Research tells us that being comfortable with our vulnerabilities is central to our happiness, our creativity, and even our productivity.

Our mobile devices seem to grant three wishes, as though gifts from a benevolent genie: first, that we will always be heard; second, that we can put our attention wherever we want it to be; and third, that we will never have to be alone.

The thing I hear most is that going to your phone makes it easier to avoid boredom or anxiety. But both of these may signal that you are learning something new, something alive and disruptive. You may be stretching yourself in a new direction. Boredom and anxiety are signs to attend more closely to things, not to turn away.

Every time you check your phone in company, what you gain is a hit of stimulation, a neurochemical shot, and what you lose is what a friend, teacher, parent, lover, or co-worker just said, meant, felt.

Just because technology can help us solve a “problem” doesn’t mean it was a problem in the first place

You know you are experiencing solitude when what you are doing brings you back to yourself.

In Thoreau’s terms, we live too “thickly,” responding to the world around rather than first learning to know ourselves.

Paul Tillich has a beautiful formulation: “Language . . . has created the word ‘loneliness’ to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word ‘solitude’ to express the glory of being alone.”

For Mozart, “When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer—say, traveling in a carriage or walking after a good meal or during the night when I cannot sleep—it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly.”

For Kafka, “You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked.”

For Thomas Mann, “Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar...

For Picasso, “Without great solitude, no serious w...

But childhood boredom is a driver. It sparks imagination. It builds up inner emotional resources.

The psychologist Jonathan Schooler demonstrated that “mind wandering” is a stepping-stone to creativity. “The mind is inherently restless,” says Schooler. “It’s always looking to attend to the most interesting thing in its environment.” If children grow up expecting that the most interesting thing in their environment is going to be on their phones, we have to teach them to give their inner worlds a chance. Indeed, in a quiet moment, all of us, child and adult, have to fight the impulse to turn first to our devices.

Never underestimate the power of a new evocative object. The story of how we use technologies of self-report and quantified self-report to think about ourselves is just beginning. Used with intention, they may provoke reflection that brings us closer to ourselves. But they can’t do it alone. Apps can give you a number; only people can provide a narrative. Technology can expose mechanism; people have to find meaning.

Research shows that if you smile, smiling itself triggers the release of the chemicals associated with happiness.

The psychoanalytic tradition suggests that action before self-understanding is rarely a good way to improve one’s situation.

If you don’t use certain parts of the brain, they will fail to develop, or be connected more weakly. By extension, if young children do not use the parts of their brain activated by conversing with an attentive parent, they will fail to develop the appropriate circuitry.