Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age

by Sherry Turkle

A lot is at stake in attention. Where we put it is not only how we decide what we will learn; it is how we show what we value.

When we think we are multitasking, our brains are actually moving quickly from one thing to the next, and our performance degrades for each new task we add to the mix.

Multitasking gives us a neurochemical high so we think we are doing better and better when actually we are doing worse and worse.

dropping out of a classroom conversation can begin with a moment of boredom, because a friend reaches out to you, or because, as one student in my memoir class put it, “You just want to see who wants you.” And once you are in that “circuit of apps,” you want to stay with them.

when students are in class multitasking on laptops, everyone around them learns less.

A life of multitasking limits your options so that you cannot simply “pick up” deep attention. What is most enriching is having fluency in both deep and hyper attention.

This is attentional pluralism and it should be our educational goal. You can choose multitasking. You can also focus on one thing at a time. And you know when you should.

My routine practice of multitasking led to another behavior—skimming.”

Having access to information is always wonderful, but without having at least some information retained in my brain, I am not able to build on those ideas or connect them together to form new ones.

When you train your brain to multitask as your basic approach—when you embrace hyper attention—you won’t be able to focus even when you want

the brain is plastic—it is constantly in flux over a lifetime—so it “rewires” itself depending on how attention is allocated.

if we decide that deep attention is a value, we can cultivate it.

in practice, grazing makes it hard to develop a narrative to frame events, for example, to think about history or current events.

The problem isn’t web surfing. It’s turning to bits and pieces at times when a more sustained narrative, the kind you are more likely to meet in a book or long article, would be a better choice.

If they have a question, they want the right answer. Quickly!” They want that answer directly and “don’t understand the idea of a process.”

“They don’t appreciate how an argument develops and sometimes needs to take side paths and turns.”

These educators think their schools need more classroom time where students present opinions, hear the objections of others, and are asked to refine their ideas. They need practice making and defending an argument. In other words, their students need more time talking to each other, face-to-face.

on-demand information does not make an education.

Quick, accurate judgments depend on having internalized an extensive library of facts.

searches that are constrained to information we need at a given moment may not generate information that may be critically useful later.”

When we depend on E-memory we lose that wide, unfiltered array of information that creates the conditions needed for creativity, for serendipity.

“To remain vital, culture must be renewed in the minds of the members of every generation. Outsource ...

students taking notes with computers suffered from more than inattention. They were losing the ability to take notes at all.

note taking trains students to organize a subject in a personal way. It cultivates an art of listening and thinking that will be important to the future lawyer.

If your notes are meant to capture the themes of the class, you remember your own participation and you make it part of the story.

note taking is part of how we learn to think.

“The most important thing that helps students succeed in an online course is interpersonal interaction and support.”

Teaching, for him, isn’t about “information.” In classrooms, “we learn from each other. This is what is lost in the online experience, confined to a computer screen and digitized feedback.”

In face-to-face settings, faculty become experienced in handling difficult conversations. For example, they can gently stop students who begin to share too much. Or help students deal with emotionally charged material that may be hard to process but is nonetheless relevant to the central themes of the class. In an online discussion, this is harder to do.

You give pleasure to another through something that gives you pleasure. When Bettelheim offered this interpretation, the class exploded with talk. Not everyone agreed, but everyone agreed that we had not allowed ourselves to say this, to think this. It was a simple answer, but it referred to the body.

Bettelheim had created a space for a kind of talking we had not done before.

Bettelheim gave us permission to bring all of the resources at our disposal to our work in the academy. Common sense should not be devalued nor should simplicity be discarded. We need to build our answers up from our very human ground. And the experience of being there left a lifelong impression.

The lecture has other virtues. It disciplines a teacher to integrate content and its critique. It teaches students that no information should be partitioned from an opportunity to discuss and challenge it “live.”

When good faculty lecture many times a week, they improvise some new parts every time. They write new sections the week or night or month before. They make lectures relevant to what is in the news.

the classroom is a place to learn how to participate in the conversations that make democracy work.

Anonymous polling and comments don’t teach you to stand up for your beliefs. Neither does anonymous posting on the online discussion board of a MOOC.

It may be easier to contribute anonymously, but it is better for all of us to learn how to take responsibility for what we believe.

life repays close, focused attention

teaching by conversation:

conversation wasn’t there to go faster, but to go deeper.

Once you have an agenda, she thinks, you are not as likely to play with ideas.

These days, when we think of downtime and reducing stress, we don’t usually think of relaxing with peers but

of getting some control over the crowd that the net brings to us.

face-to-face conversation leads to higher productivity and is also associated with reduced stress

The “conversation effect” doesn’t work the same way for online encounters. What matters is being together face-to-face.

What makes you productive is “your interactions with other people—you know,

individuals who feel most productive when they sit alone in front of their screens or who find this the best way to feel in control of their time and information overload.

Supported by the impression that this is when they are doing their “real work,” many employees feel justified in avoiding face-to-face conversation.

Technology makes it possible for Tennant to schedule a full day of international meetings. But the pace doesn’t leave her time to think. She says, “The technology makes me more productive, but I know the quality of my thinking suffers.”

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