Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age

by Sherry Turkle

Catastrophe Culture From the earliest days of mobile culture, it was understood—outside the context of flirting—that if you receive a call or a text, you are expected to respond. It might be an emergency. This was an etiquette that did not defer to considerations of what once would have been considered “politeness.” For the new rules disrupt dinner, sleep, business meetings, and intimate conversations. We’ve seen college students leave classrooms to find quiet spaces in bathroom stalls to respond to text messages from friends. And we’ve seen how, among young people, the idea of immediate access to friends on a phone easily crosses over into a language of emergencies. Children are quick to use the term emergency for everything they hope their phones will protect them from. So many of the young people I spoke with seem to be waiting for an emergency. It could be a personal emergency. But there could be another Katrina, another 9/11. The grid could crash. The story about life as emergencies is about how people, especially young people, develop a fretful self.

! Cell phone