Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age

by Sherry Turkle

a camper who has been acting up (perhaps getting into fights, perhaps bullying younger boys in the dining hall), an hour can go by in silence. Sometimes two. “And then,” the counselor says, “and then, there will be the question. And then, there will be the conversation.”

people with phones make themselves less vulnerable to each other and feel less connected to each other than those who talk without the presence of a phone on the landscape.

In these new silences at meals and at playtime, caretakers are not modeling the skills of relationship, which are the same as the skills for conversation.

These are above all empathic skills: You attend to the feelings of others; you signal that you will try to understand them. Children, too, text rather than talk with each other at school and on the playground. Anxious about the give-and-take of conversation, young people are uncertain in their attachments. And, anxious in their attachments, young people are uncertain about conversation.

Disorganized attachment

the young recruits are forthright about wanting to avoid even the “real-time” commitment of a telephone call.

Real time commitment Telephone call

titrate

Goldilocks effect. It’s part of the move from conversation to mere connection.

They treat their friends the way that made them feel so bad when they were growing up with distracted parents—parents on phones.

If we don’t put children in the situations that teach empathy (and a face-to-face apology is one of these), it is not surprising that they have difficulty seeing the effects of their words on others.

“I’m sorry” means, on the one hand, “I no longer want to have tension with you; let’s be okay,”

“I’m not going to be next to you while you go through your feelings; just let me know when our troubles are over.”

These opportunities can be seized.

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he wants to cancel a plan—say, dinner with his grandparents—he has to make a phone call to break the date.

That real-time telephone call teaches that his proposed actions will affect others. His mother says, “He can hear how my mother made the roast chicken and it’s already in the oven. He can hear that his grandfather has already bought the syrup to make ice cream sundaes.” In sum, he can hear that he is expected and that his presence will be missed. She adds that since the new rules have gone into effect, there has rarely been a cancellation.

Home visits and phone calls vs talking points or texts

In-person apologies are no less potent in business settings.

not being able to say you’re sorry face-to-face is “like driving a car but not knowing how to go in reverse.” Essentially, it means you can’t drive. In his view, he is working with a lot of people who need driving lessons.

Great metaphor

“the honest truth.” Gretchen adds, “That is what will restore my concentration.”

Restore my concentration

we become accustomed to a life of constant interruption.

They like moving in and out of talk, text, and images; they like the continual feed. And they like always having someplace else to go.

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They say that their greatest fear is boredom. If for a moment students don’t find enough stimulation in the room, they go to the chat.

Trauma parallel here !

to slip away from our group conversation just as it becomes challenging.

“Look at me when you speak to me.” We teach children the outward manifestations of full attention because we hope that by working backward from behavior we can get them to a more profound feeling state.

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Eye contact is the most powerful path to human connection.

Home visits !

The philosopher Heinrich von Kleist calls this “the gradual completion of thoughts while speaking.”

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Von Kleist quotes the French proverb that “appetite comes from eating” and observes that it is equally the case that “ideas come from speaking.” The best thoughts, in his view, can be almost unintelligible as they emerge; what matters most is risky, thrilling conversation as a crucible for discovery.

Crucible of discovery Snacks appetite metaphor for discourse !

In the new communications culture, interruption is not experienced as interruption but as another connection.

Boredom and anxiety are signs to attend more closely to things, not to turn away.

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studies show that open screens degrade the performance of everyone who can see them—their owners and everyone sitting around them.

as von Kleist would have it, to reach out and speak a thought that will only emerge in connection with a listener.

negative emotions require more processing in more parts of the brain.

A quarter of American teenagers are connected to a device within five minutes of waking up

Multitasking degrades our performance at everything we do, all the while giving us the feeling that we are doing better at everything. So it makes us less productive no matter how good it makes us feel. And recall technology’s deficiencies as a “sentimental education”: Frequent multitasking is associated with depression, social anxiety, and trouble reading human emotions.

Those who multitask most frequently don’t get better at it; they just want more of it. This means that conversation, the kind that demands focus, becomes more and more difficult.

design for vulnerability

Conversation implies something kinetic. It is derived from words that mean “to tend to each other, to lean toward each other,” words about the activity of relationship, one’s “manner of conducting oneself in the world or in society; behavior, mode or course of life.” To converse, you

see others for who they are, not for who you need them to be.

“I share, therefore I am.”

A love of solitude and self-reflection enables sociability.

conversation to be at the heart of the learning culture and I learned that conversation is good for the bottom line.

constant interruption threatens achievement.

we go to classes that are not quite classes

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an opportunity to watch someone think, boring bits and all.

Thoreau took his guests into nature. I think of this as his fourth chair,

Intelligence once meant more than what any artificial intelligence does. It used to include sensibility, sensitivity, awareness, discernment, reason, acumen, and wit.

But who said that a life without conflict, without being reminded of past mistakes, past pain, or one where you can avoid rubbing shoulders with troublesome people, is good?

Was it the same person who said that life shouldn’t have boring bits?

The fact is, history is a series of stories. And kids love stories. The same is true for science topics that don’t lend themselves to hands-on activities. It’s ironic that truly abstract concepts like captions and symbols are considered appropriate for six-year-olds, but informational tales about history, science, and the arts are not. But it’s not just that students can understand and enjoy the stuff we’ve been withholding from them. It turns out that it’s also good for them; if young children are introduced to history and science in concrete and understandable ways, chances are they’ll be far better equipped to reengage with them with more nuance later on. At the same time, teaching disconnected comprehension skills boosts neither comprehension nor reading scores. It’s just empty calories. In effect, kids are clamoring for broccoli and spinach while adults insist on a steady diet of donuts.

they actively want to avoid the spontaneity of conversation.

It suggests that it is time to rediscover an interest in the points of view of those with whom we disagree. And it suggests that we slow down enough to listen to them, one at a time.

Our technological mandarins don’t always live the life they build for others.

the capacity for solitude.