Can you look someone in the eye and type on your phone at the same time—without your split attention being detected?
If you’re like most of the college students who interviewed for writer Sherry Turkle’s New York Times’ article “Stop Googling, Let’s Talk,” you can.
The skill—one students master in order to text in class without consequence—has evolved, writes Turkle. “Now they use it when they want to be both with their friends and, as some put it, ‘elsewhere.’”
Turkle has studied “the psychology of online connectivity” for more than 30 years. Her focus: face-to-face conversation. Or, perhaps more accurately, its demise.
“We’ve gotten used to being connected all the time, but we have found ways around conversation—at least from conversation that is open-ended and spontaneous, in which we play with ideas and allow ourselves to be fully present and vulnerable, she writes. But it is in this type of conversation—through eye contact, being aware of another person’s posture and tone, comforting and respectfully challenging one another—that empathy and intimacy flourish. Without those meaningful, face-to-face conversations, she says, empathy suffers.
“In conversation, things go best if you pay close attention and learn how to put yourself in someone else’s shoes,” writes Turkle. This is easier to do without any phones in hand, she says. Or even in view.
Phones And Their Effects On Conversation
Studies of conversation show that when two people are talking, the mere presence of a phone on a table between them or in the periphery of their vision changes both what they talk about and the degree of connection they feel, she writes.
“People keep the conversation on topics where they won’t mind being interrupted. They don’t feel as invested in each other. Even a silent phone disconnects us.”
To reclaim conversation, we need to first reclaim solitude.
“Some of the most crucial conversations you will ever have will be with yourself, she says. “Slow down sufficiently to make this possible. And make a practice of doing one thing at a time. Thing of uni-tasking as the next big thing.” And think of conversation as one way to practice uni-tasking.
Carve out spaces at home that are device-free, she says, sacred spaces for the paired virtues of conversation and solitude.
“Families can find these spaces in the day to day—no devices at dinner, in the kitchen and in the car. Introduce this idea to children when they are young so instead it doesn’t spring up as punitive but as a baseline of family culture.
We face a significant choice, she says. It is not about giving up our phones and the other various devices; it’s about using them with greater intention.
“Conversation is there for us to reclaim,” says Turkle. “For the failing connections of our digital world, it is the talking cure.”
