Reclaiming Conversation

Renowned media scholar Sherry Turkle investigates how a flight from conversation undermines our relationships, creativity, and productivity—and why reclaiming face-to-face conversation can help us regain lost ground.

We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.

Preeminent author and researcher Sherry Turkle has been studying digital culture for over thirty years. Long an enthusiast for its possibilities, here she investigates a troubling consequence: at work, at home, in politics, and in love, we find ways around conversation, tempted by the possibilities of a text or an email in which we don’t have to look, listen, or reveal ourselves.

We develop a taste for what mere connection offers. The dinner table falls silent as children compete with phones for their parents’ attention. Friends learn strategies to keep conversations going when only a few people are looking up from their phones. At work, we retreat to our screens although it is conversation at the water cooler that increases not only productivity but commitment to work. Online, we only want to share opinions that our followers will agree with – a politics that shies away from the real conflicts and solutions of the public square.

The case for conversation begins with the necessary conversations of solitude and self-reflection. They are endangered: these days, always connected, we see loneliness as a problem that technology should solve. Afraid of being alone, we rely on other people to give us a sense of ourselves, and our capacity for empathy and relationship suffers. We see the costs of the flight from conversation everywhere: conversation is the cornerstone for democracy and in business it is good for the bottom line. In the private sphere, it builds empathy, friendship, love, learning, and productivity.

But there is good news: we are resilient. Conversation cures.

Based on five years of research and interviews in homes, schools, and the workplace, Turkle argues that we have come to a better understanding of where our technology can and cannot take us and that the time is right to reclaim conversation. The most human—and humanizing—thing that we do.

The virtues of person-to-person conversation are timeless, and our most basic technology, talk, responds to our modern challenges. We have everything we need to start, we have each other.

Quotes and thoughts while reading:

"I have three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society." - Henry David Thoreau

"Distracted at our dinner tables and living rooms, at our business meetings, and on our streets, we find traces of a new "silent spring" - a term Rachel Carson coined when we were ready to see that with technological change had come an assault on our environment. Now, we have arrived at another moment of recognition. This time, technology is implicated in an assault on empathy. We have learned that... the very sight of a phone on the landscape leaves us feeling less connected to each other, less invested in each other."(p 4) I think the comparison to Rachel Carson is fascinating, because it puts everything in the same frame as environmental impact(which really this is just a different environment - a less physical environment - but still one that can be poisoned by technology.) We can think of fresh water ponds that have turned into swamps or bogs by oil, and construct a metaphor to phones - that turned deep thoughtful conversations into shallow vapid avenues for sharing what you saw - not what you thought.

"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.... Technology disrupts this virtuous cycle. The disruption begins with solitude, Thoreau's first chair... These days, we see that when people are alone at a stop sign or in the checkout line at the supermarket, they seem almost panicked and they reach for their phones. We are so accustomed to being always connected that being alone seems like a problem technology should solve..."(p 10) Isn't this so true? Isn't this what you see when you are out and about in the world? People just being unwilling to be bored and alone? And I get that you could make the argument that people have always done this - they had newspapers, books, Walkmans, radios - but there just seems to be something different with technology. Nicholas Carr posits that deep reading doesn't happen on a smart phone or computer - so even though the newspaper was there to escape into - there as different action on your brain. We'll talk more about this later.

Pages 20 and 21 talk about what conversation looks like now - it's more fragmented and people are popping in and out after checking things on their phones. "There are fewer conversations - not with the people you're texting, but with the people around you!" Texting and emailing has given us this ability to "present the self we want to be. We can edit and retouch." But what does that mean for conversation - where that action is impossible. I think that's where the meat of this book really lies - in trying to get people to realize that their very pursuit to present this perfect image of themselves is limiting their capacity to do just that.

"On twitter, on Facebook, I'm geared toward showing my best shelf, showing me to be invulnerable or with as little vulnerability as possible."(p 24) I wonder what Burnet Brown has to say about that. I still feel like there are two camps - the fake it till you make it, and the wear your heart on your sleeve and be your true self. Which leads to healthier living? Which is more satisfying at the end of the day? To me - being your true self seems like the obvious choice - but that's not the choice that society is making today on the whole. We are more often not putting our masks on when we go online. And this is something I find so amazing - the internet first started as a place to take off your mask - the place you could swim into as your naked self - and there are still sites out there that allow this - but more and more often it feels like someone is watching you and you have to be careful what you say. It's just very interesting how that has changed. Before people maybe didn't realize the permanence of what is said online - and current users are taking note of that. There is a fear that what you do and say online will come back to haunt you.

"A junior admits that wants to ask her friends to put away their phones at meals but she can't do it because she would be socially out of line. 'It's hard to ask someone to give you their undivided attention.' She elaborates: Imagine me saying, "I'm happy to see you, would you mind putting your phone away so that we can have a nice breakfast conversation?" And they would think, "Well, that's really weird." Asking for full attention at a meal, she says, 'would be age inappropriate.'"(p 30) Aaaahhh - I just feel like screaming when I read this. Are you serious?! That is such a loving, caring sentence to approach someone with - that shows you truly want to engage with them - and you would get the response back of 'Well, that's really weird.' Ian asked me the other day if I was afraid of getting left behind because of my unwillingness to adopt new technological standards(we were talking about the iPhone 7 ditching the headphone jack) - and in all honesty - yes I am a bit afraid. But if falling behind means I can have conversations without phones out - or still ask people to put them away and receive flak for it - then I am totally willing to be left behind. That's not a future I want to accept as my norm.

Life's Boring Bits talks all about the activities we no longer fully partake in because they are "boring". The one that stuck me the most was "A young father, thirty-four, tells me that when he gives his two-year-old daughter a bath, he finds it boring... Just a few nights earlier, instead of sitting patiently with her, talking and singing to her, as he did with his older children, he began to check email on his phone."(p 38) This isn't the only example of missing moments with your children because a phone comes in between you. Breastfeeding was also mentioned. I'm just struck with this feeling in the put of my stomach that fears for the relationships these parents will have with their kids. I don't remember my bath time, or breastfeeding, but I do know those activities made my mother feel closer to me - and that she has fond memories of them.

"More generally, the experience of boredom is directly linked to creation and innovation... If we remain curious about our boredom, we can use it as a moment to step back and make a new connection. Or it offers a moment, as von Kleist would have it, to reach out and speak a thought that will emerge in connection with a listener."(p 39)

I've had this conversation before with people - but it's always nice to see someone else writing about it. What I'm referencing is this idea of a friction free environment - it's what technologists have been marketing for years - and they do it by addressing your "pain points" - and how their new innovation can solve them. "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?...Just because technology can help us solve a "problem" doesn't mean it was a problem in the first place."(p 53)

"Checkers with your grandparents is an occasion to talk; checkers with a computer program is an occasion to strategize and perhaps be allowed to win... A fourteen-year-old girl sums up her feeling about spending an hour on Facebook: "Even if it just seeing the 'likes' on things I posted, I feel that I've accomplished something." What has she accomplished?"(p 63) Truly - what? Although I do feel like this has changed - people, at least in my life - are seeing Facebook as more of a time suck then they used to.

"Language has created the world 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the world 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone." - Paul Tillich (p 65)

Numbers and Narration touches upon this strange idea that an app can tell you what you are writing about - but not why. And even more worrying, since it's all a "blackbox" you'll never know, and don't have anyone to ask. At least if you were seeing a therapist, and they were analyzing your writing - you could ask them - what stood out. There's no dialogue with technology - just monologues.

Speaking of therapists: "In the safety of talk therapy you learn that you tell yourself small, unconscious lies - to large effect. And you learn to stop, reflect, and correct. You come to recognize moments when you accuse your therapist of inattention but are actually addressing someone in your past who ignored you. Similarly, you learn to recognize moments when you accuse an intimate of the qualities that you most dislike about yourself..."(p 97) Hmm - that's something interesting to think about. I know I've done this - but how many people get the clairvoyance to realize they are doing it as well?

"Nicholas Carr, who introduced the notion of 'the shallows' to help people think about how their brains adapt to life on the web, said: 'We become, neurologically, what we think.' 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... my concern is serious: If young children are not engaged in conversation, they will start out a step behind in their development."(p 110) I'm beginning to realize I need to look for books that talk about the benefits of technology on our connectedness - my confirmation bias is probably pretty high - as all of this fits into my narrative of truth.

"When I tell him I'm working on a book on conversation, his reaction is close to a snort: "Conversation? It died in 2009." That was the year he was a college senior, majoring in history.
That's the year we shared things on Facebook instead of talking to each other. We put our energy into our profiles. We talked about what we had put online. The focus of friendship became what you found online and how you would share that with your friends. These days, you do it with Instagram or Snapchat. People are less into their profiles. But the idea is the same. Don't talk it. Post it. Share it.(p 137-138)
Hmm - isn't there some truth. Isn't that one of the big ways we communicate nowadays? Is to talk about what we've seen online? Not to talk about how it made you feel when you saw it - but just that you saw it. Where is the critical thought? Where is the questioning? Where is the depth?

"...smartphones and social media have infused friendship with the Fear of Missing out - now a feeling so well known that most people just call it by its acronym, FOMO. In its narrow definition, the acronym stand for tension that follow from knowing so much about the lives of others because of social media. You develop self-doubt from knowing that so many of your friends are having enviable fun. As the term caught on, it came to capture the widespread anxiety about what to do and where to go now that so many options are apparent to you."(p 145) That might be the best part of not being on social media - I don't really suffer from this. I know there's too much to do in the world - so I take pleasure in the things I do get to do. And that's enough for me.

"In 1979 Susan Sontag wrote, 'Today, everything exists to end in a photograph.' Today, does everything exist to end online?"(p 151)

"Reade, the dean[of Holbrooke], comes to the group meeting with the results of a small exercise; a small experiment, really. One of Reade's jobs is to run advisory groups of about twenty students each. She asked members of her groups to list three things they want in a friend. In the more than sixty responses she received, only three students mentioned trust, caring, kindness, or compassion. Most of the students say they are interested in someone who could make them laugh, who could make them happy... Reade says that she has to conclude that these students don't understand or value what a "best friend" can be. Best friends are more than amusements or insurance that you won't be alone. Best friends are people you care about. They are people to whom you reveal yourself. You learn about yourself as you learn about them. But Reade notes that these lessons are hard to learn online."(p 163)

"A true friend is someone we can occasionally be crazy with, someone who does not expect us to be always true to form. It is someone who shares our goal of self-realization, and therefore is willing to share the risks that any increase in complexity entails."(p 175) Hmm, there's some good meat here. You both have to be willing to be crazy for one another - because I feel like this definition could lead down a dangerous path / spiral.

"This is what people mean by 'friction-free,' the buzzword for what a life of apps can bring us. Without an app, it would not be possible to reject hundreds, even thousands of potential mates with no awkwardness. It has never been easier to think of potential partners as commodities in abundance. In this social environment, studies show a declines in the ability to form secure attachments - the kind where you trust and share your life. Ironically, our new efficient quests for romance are tied up in behaviors that discourages empathy and intimacy. The preliminaries of traditional courtship, the dinner dates that emphasized patience and deference, did not necessarily lead to intimacy but provided practice in what intimacy requires."(p 180) Fascinating to think about - and something to keep in mind. I think we have the ability to use tools like Tinder - and to create though spaces that allow for empathy. I think it might take concerted effort - but when has that ever been a truly horrid thing? (Oh wait - aren't we trying to live in a friction-free life? I think that's the bigger issue actually.)

"...'we don't always know what we need to know, and searches that are constrained to information we need at a given moment may not generate information that may be critically useful later.' Searches return what we ask for - that's what they are made to do. When we depend on E-memory we lose that wide, unfiltered array of information that creates the conditions needed for creativity, for serendipity. Nicholas Carr broadens the concern about search and memory when he says, 'To remain vital, culture must be renewed in the minds of the members of every generation. Outsource memory, and culture withers."(p 224/225) Hmm - I really like this. I only wrote to take notes on the Carr quote- but the supporting words yield an even better picture. I think that's the joy in reading an entire book - you don't go to the section that has the information that you need right away - you read through the entirety - and find something you might not have looked for before. You don't know what you don't know.

"When the CEO of MIT's online educational initiative floated the idea that good actors might make good teachers, the idea was not dismissed out of hand but set the Internet buzzing. Students complain of boredom. Why not have presentations by professional presenters? Matt Damon, perhaps? If you want compelling delivery of content, actors can do that... The actor could be the filmed "talking head" for the content..."(p 238) Isn't that happening? The U.N. elected Leonardo DiCaprio to be their liaison for climate change, and he made a very compelling movie - and presented the information. What a weird world when what is surmised as a possible solution becomes reality. I'm not sure how I feel about actors - because I worry that they aren't being genuine, that they don't really care about the issue. And what that means for society - to become impassioned by someone who is not?

"...in a classroom, one should "walk" towards embarrassment. Students should feel safe enough to take the risk of saying something that might not be worked through or popular. Students will get over feeling embarrassed. 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."(p 240) This, I want this for the cohort! I want this for HAF.

"This is reaching by conversation: It is a delicate thing, a walk toward boredom and embarrassment. (Sandel allows awkward moments. Some of the students cannot follow through on their thoughts even as he asks them to find their courage.) 'You do get embarrassed, but you get over it and get used to hearing yourself say things aloud. You say to yourself, 'Did I say that? I can't believe I think that, but I do think that. I've thought about this; I just never thought I could get myself to say it." (p 242) Again - this is what HAF and the cohort need. We need to teach and learn by conversation - which I think is exactly like what we are doing.

"Mentoring for conversation requires that you address two questions. You will be asked, outright, "Why focus on one thing, as you must in a face-to-face conversation, when you can get greater 'value' from spreading around your attention?" The answer: Multitasking will not bring greater value. You will feel you are achieving more and more as you accomplish less and less. You will be asked, outright, "Why go through the anxiety of separating from all of your connections to focus on the small group you are with?" The answer: The more you talk to your colleagues, the greater your productivity.
But behind these questions, these objections, there is something else no so easy to answer with research results. The demands of the workplace come to everyone on screens, and these demands can seem overwhelming. Screens provide a way to organize these demands, to take them at a pace that seems tolerable. Sticking to your screen allows to you experience some measure of control. When people resist moving away from their screens and toward conversation, they are often afraid of giving up this feeling of mastery." (p 262)

"A crucial moment in the workshop came when the managers were asked how much they knew about the people they supervised. In particular, did that know how those they supervised would answer the question, "What is your sense of purpose?" Even managers who had supervised the same employees for over a decade could not talk confidently about their motivations. These are things that you don't learn without a conversation."(p 272) Looking back at this - I find it awesome that Ron asked me this very question. And then later I thought on it again and was left reeling with the questions: "What do I bring to HAF other than my technical skills? And how are those skills valued, by my department / the organization as a whole?" It's kind of a doozy of a question, and I still don't know the answer. I'm also not entirely satisfied by the answer I gave Ron, but it's something we'll just have to talk about again.

"Politics still needs meetings that are meetings. It still needs conversations that require listening, conversations in which you are prepared to learn that a situation is more complex than you thought. You might want to change your ming. This is what our current political landscape discourages. There is a low of conversation - both online and off - in which opponents broadcast sound bites. There is a lot of staged conversation. You can avoid challenging conversations on and off the web." (p 298) I think back to the True North open talk - it was a chance to get together - and realize the complexities and what this time period means to different people. It was a chance to really feel that, and get into it. It was immensely valuable and is a game changer(or is it just going back to the way it should be?).

The World Without Privacy - oh yeah. That's where we are now. I'd love to talk to Kai about all of this again(from Sun Frost), to see where he is on this idea - and how he is feeling with the current political landscape. It would have been fascinating to work at Sun Frost when Trump was running for President. But, back to the book - "My grandmother wanted me to understand that I could take out any book. but the books I chose would be a secret between me and the library. No one had a right to know the list of books I read. It was like the privacy of our mailbox. Both protected what I would call mindspace. It was crucial to why she was so glad to be raising her family in America."(p 302) I find this both heartening and disheartening. Disheartening because I think we should be able to read or think whatever we want, and it should be able to be broadcast to the public sphere without fear of retaliation. Like I read Kropotkin(who is the original anarcho-communist), and I should be able to tell people that, and not be put away in jail. Nowadays it seems like if I was reading the autobiography of a child molester I would be labeled suspect and closely monitored and watched. What happened to curiosity?

I'll tell you what happened to it, we "internalized the censor".(p 306) "In the world as Foucault analyzed it, when you put cameras on street corners, you want people to notice them and build a self that takes surveillance as a given..." Again, we've internalized Big Brother - we just take it as a given that what we write, or read could and will be held against us at some point. That's why there is the meme about erasing your web history after you die. I mean, come on, really? You're dead - who cares about the freaky porn you looked at?

"Thoreau went to Walden to try and think his own thoughts, to remove himself from living "too thickly" - how he referred to the constant chatter around him in society. These days we live more "thickly" than Thoreau could ever have imagined, bombarded by the opinions, preferences, and "likes" of others. With the new sensibility of "I share, therefore I am," many are drawn to the premise that thinking together makes for better thinking."(p 309) Ooh, I love Thoreau.

"... it was in spring 2014 that an email circulated to board members[of the EFF] that described how easy it is to provoke the government to put you on a list of those whose email and searched are "fully tracked". For example, you will get on that list if, from outside the United States, you try to use TOR, a method of browsing anonymously online. The same article explained that from within the United States, you will also activate "full tracking" if you try to use alternatives to standard operating systems - for example, if you go the Linux home page. It would appear that the Linux forum has been declared an "extremist" site."(p 312) Ugh - this worries me. Really, just because you use an alternative OS you are suspect? That's getting into the thought police territory. It goes back to the banned books from the 50's. Have we entered a new phase of McCarthyism? But instead of the HUAC, we have the NSA reading through all of our emails, just to make sure we aren't up to "no-good"?

"In the 2012 presidential election, Facebook looked at random precincts and got people to go to the polls by telling them that their friends had voted. This political intervention was framed as a study, with the following research question. Can social media affect voter turnout. It can. Internet and law expert Jonathan Zittrain has called the manipulation of votes by social media "digital gerrymandering." It is an unregulated threat. Facebook also did a study, a mood experiment, in which some people were shown posts from happy friends and some people were shown posts from unhappy friends to see if this changed their moods. It did. Social media has the power to shape our political actions and emotional lives. We're accustomed to media manipulation - advertising has always tried to do this. But having unprecedented kinds of information about us - from what medications we take to what time we go to bed - allows for unprecedented interventions and intrusions. What is at stake is a sense of a self in control of itself. And a citizenry that can think for itself."(p 314) See, I still have been with Facebook for this - and for all the pluses that it may present - I just can't bring myself to use it. I can't give them that power to affect me in that way. I can't knowingly, unknowingly participate in a science experiment, that could affect the way I feel or act. That's just not right.

The Nick of Time has a couple suggestions to combat where we've found ourselves. They're simple but - Talk to people with whom you don't agree, Obey the seven-minute rule(which is to stick in a conversation for at least seven minutes - and not to leave before that time), Challenge a view of the world as apps, don't avoid difficult conversations, try to avoid all-or-nothing thinking. Good things to think about, not necessarily ground breaking, but a good way to start, and a way to break out of bad habits.

"Thoreau says that for the most expansive conversations, the deepest ones, he brought his guests out into nature - he calls it his withdrawing room, his "best room"."(p 337) Turkle goes onto to question - "Who do we become when we talk to machines?" - and the picture painted it a bit scary.

There is a crushing story of a robot Kismet, who talks to children and expresses certain facial patterns and responses. This robot makes a young girl feel special and listened to, but on this particular day the robot is malfunctioning a bit - and it upsets Estelle. "Estelle tells us why she is upset: Kismet does not like her. The robot began to talker with her and then turned away. We explain that this is not the case. The problem had been technical. Estelle is not convinced. From her point of view, she has failed on her most important day... my team reconvenes at a nearby coffee shop to ask ourselves a hard question: Can a broken robot break a child?"(p 343) Jesus, what a terrifying idea. And it's most crushing because Estelle is just not at an age where she can understand what Kismet is, and that Kismet isn't real. He's just programming, he's cold. But to her, he is close enough to real that she can't see the difference. It's this, the fact that she can't delineate that worries me the most. Are we going to have a society of kids who speak to Siri like she is a friend, or deity?

"We want more from technology and less from each other.(I feel like this should be donor services motto)... People are lonely and fear intimacy, and robots seem ready to lend a hand. And we are ready for their company if we forget what intimacy is. And having nothing to forget, our children learn new rules for when it is appropriate to talk to a machine."(p 346) Indeed - we're entering into scary waters not.

To close we'll reflect upon the notion that "we've gotten ourselves into trouble with technology and technology can help us get out of it." But that's limited - because "We had a love affair with a technology that seemed magical. But like great magic, it worked by commanding our attention and not letting us see anything but what the magician wanted us to see. Now we are ready to reclaim our attention - for solitude, for friendship, for society."(p 361) And technology is not the way to do it - conversation that is "artless, risky and face-to-face".

So what am I left to think at the end of this book? Where has my mind settled? I think first and foremost - I have to read a book evangelizing conversation through technology - and how much better that will be for us. Just to get a contrast, and to hear from the other side. In the end, I really do think conversation is key, it's something we need to worry less about, and just do more of. Make mistakes, create spaces where we can learn together, and be a little gentler with each other. Maybe it's important to be right, or to say the right thing, but it's important to be heard, to say something, and to get feedback. The cohort at HAF is trying to do this exact thing - it's trying to be that space, and our new meeting style is trying to do that as well. So maybe in the "learning" section I should share a little less "down-to-earth" things, and be a little more meta. Share something I learned in my personal time. Maybe a quote or quip from this book. Maybe share a bit about the Whitney Biennial, or other sections from Who We Be. I hope other people at HAF and in the cohort can hear a little about this subject, and worry a little less about how what they say will be perceived. And to love each other a bit more.