Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age

“Real people, with their unpredictable ways, can seem difficult to contend with after one has spent a stretch in a simulation.”

The online environment is systematized in a way that real life is not. Conversations and experiences with real people are irreducible to a series of predictable inputs and outputs. Rather, real life is messy, which provides some of its frustrations but also much of its exhilaration. Returning to life without devices—or cutting back—will feel unfamiliar after inordinate time online.

“Our texts are fine. It’s what texting does to our conversations when we are together, that’s the problem.”

In a group of eight people, Cameron tells Turkle that it is not the content of the texts that creates an issue. Rather, texts and phones change the nature of physical gatherings. At a dinner, a meeting, or any other gathering, if anyone’s eyes are downward on a screen, it changes the dynamic of giving and receiving attention. A text that interrupts a gathering results in the receiver pausing the others to communicate with someone who is not present.

“Human relationships are rich, messy, and demanding. When we clean them up with technology, we move from conversation to the efficiencies of mere connection. I fear we forget the difference.”

Turkle believes it unrealistic to expect technology to produce sanitized, less problematic relationships. The act of connecting can be reduced to the physical mechanics of texting someone. Efficiency does not imply meaning, and texting does not always create a real conversation. 

“In order to get [immediate answers], we ask simpler questions; we dumb down our communications, even on the most important matters. And we become accustomed to a life of constant interruption.”

The online environment does little to encourage deep thinking and complicated communication. From Turkle’s view, when devices overtake conversation, everyone participates in a lowering of the bar, aided by the technologies that are supposedly meant to connect us and enrich our relationships. A life of interruptions is not a life where people focus deeply on one another.

“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 society; behavior, mode or course of life.’”

Texting is communication at a remove. In some situations, texting is anti-conversation, conveying none of the intimacy or focused attention that a conversation must have. Digital conversation has broken from the word’s etymology and bears little relation to its original meaning.

“All thinking, strictly speaking, is done in solitude and is a dialogue between me and myself; but this dialogue of the two-in-one does not lose contact with the world of my fellowmen because they are represented in the self with whom I lead the dialogue of thought.”

The philosopher Hannah Arendt defines thinking as something that must be done in solitude. Her dialogue with herself is a conversation. However, she thinks with the goal of improving the world, and any productive thinking can benefit the society in which one finds oneself.

“Apps can give you a number; only people can provide a narrative.”

Conversation requires storytelling as people tell one another about their lives. There is no conversation without narrative. Apps that show people what they are already interested in, and that track user data, are emotionless. No amount of data, divorced from narrative, can replace the benefits of conversation. 

“Self tracking does not logically imply a machine view of self, or the reduction of self-worth to a number, but it gets people in the habit of thinking of themselves as made up of measurable units and achievements. It makes it natural to ask, ‘What is my score?’”

People can lose their sense of identity without solitude and reflection. Algorithmic thinking about the self does not quantify the things that matter most about people and their relationships to one another. Telling someone one’s score on a tracking app does not convey anything about the person’s qualities, only about their activities.

“Social media is set up to teach different lessons. Instead of promoting the value of authenticity, it encourages performance. Instead of teaching the rewards of vulnerability, it suggests that you put on your best face.”

Being vulnerable—and recognizing when someone else is vulnerable—is crucial for the development of empathy. Social media results in performative lives rather than the relative messiness of genuine human interactions. Social media, or other technologies that reward achievement, do not reward vulnerability. In many cases, public vulnerability on social media can have negative consequences.

“Trust […] knowing that someone is not understanding you, not paying attention, makes it easy to lose trust. If someone was on their phone and not really in the conversation, I don’t feel like I can trust them as much.”

Hillary describes the feeling of trying to talk to her mother about something serious while her mother is on the phone. Hillary believes that trusting someone requires that the person focus on her. If her mother can’t be bothered to fully participate in the conversation, Hillary is less inclined to be vulnerable, even when she needs help.

“People used to know their neighbors; now all you’ve got is your phone.”

Tod is 15 years old. He says that he doesn’t feel as if he even lives in a town. His neighbors are neighbors in name only. Whenever he sees them, they are looking at their phones. People choose to interact with screens rather than the people who live next door. This diminishes the neighborhood community.

“People work on desired qualities in the virtual and gradually bring them into their lives ‘off the screen.’”

Adam tries to represent the person he wants to be online. He acts more empathetic and available than he feels, hoping it will become true. He treats his digital self as a version of faking it until you make it. While there is nothing inherently wrong about the idea, Tessa leaves him when he can’t reconcile his online self with the real person in front of her.

“Online exchanges give us so much data that we now know all that we need to know about our partners. Certainly enough to get it ‘just right.’”

The data fallacy assures people that they already know everything necessary about their partners, given the volume of their text and social media exchanges. However, words alone do not convey a full conversation. There is more that can only be gleaned from body language, listening, facial expressions, and eye contact.

“Behind our note taking on computers was a fantasy: When the machines made it possible for us to take notes faster, we would take notes better. Instead, we don’t take notes at all but behave like transcribing machines. Second, when the day comes that machines are able to take notes for us, it will not serve our purposes, because note taking is part of how we learn to think.”

Steiker tells Turkle that her Harvard law students do not want to be interrupted while on their laptops. They take notes, but they act more like dictation machines. Her students do not engage with their notes or use them for greater understanding. Without choosing what to include in their notes, Steiker’s students miss out on the learning process.

“Technology makes us forget what we know about life.”

Technology promises to fix problems and reduce challenges. MOOCs were supposed to guarantee equality in a classroom, but some students realize that they are missing out by not being in a physical classroom. What once seemed obvious—physical lectures and group discussions being part of college—is now forgotten.

“In a classroom, students should ‘walk’ toward 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.”

Turkle discusses the value of live lectures from the perspective of the teachers and the students. Online commenting systems provide anonymity for students. Even brilliant students who can’t express themselves in person—as opposed to commenting anonymously, online—will find themselves ill equipped for success outside of the online class if their work requires them to speak in live settings or in face-to-face relationships.

“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 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.”

Turkle breaks down some of the misconceptions surrounding multitasking. Ironically, the online environment makes it possible to do several things at once. However, it grants the illusion of being productive while the quality of the various tasks suffers. Efficacy may diminish even as effort increases.

“Privacy is no longer a relevant social norm.”

Mark Zuckerberg’s words here distill a massive problem with social media. If he does not believe that privacy is relevant, he has no incentive not to monetize peoples’ lack of privacy. When Facebook users hear him say this, their continued use of the platform validates his claim.

“You needed privacy to change your mind about important matters.”

Turkle’s grandmother emphasized the importance of privacy during a visit to the Brooklyn library. Turkle later realizes that, to some extent, ideas have to coalesce and evolve in private, without external pressures. With a secure mindspace, people have the freedom to explore ideas and follow paths of inquiry that they would not be able to publicly.

“This is one of the great paradoxes of digital conversation: It feels private despite the fact that you are onstage.”

Turkle explains that each person who participates in the digital world creates an exposed digital self. Digital communications are not private, and the monitoring processes are obfuscated and complex. The online environment gives everyone the chance to talk more, but the conversations are not private to the people conversing.

“A child alone with a problem has an emergency. A child in conversation with a grown-up is facing a moment in life and learning to cope with it.”

When parents neglect children for any reason, children feel a heightened sense of urgency. They do not have the tools to solve their problems, and no one is helping them. Talking through problems with a trusted adult gives children the resources to cope, and the adult models appropriate, reassuring behavior in the face of a challenge. 

“Until a machine replaces the man, surely he summons in us the recognition and respect you show a person. Sharing a few words at the checkout may make this man feel that in his job, this job that could be done by a machine, he is still seen as a human being.”

Turkle responds to a woman who says that her only time to check her phone is when she is in line at the grocery store. The woman wants to decompress with her phone instead of chatting with the cashier. Turkle posits that both the cashier and the woman might be better served if she chats with him for a moment.

“Children need to learn what complex human feelings and human ambivalence look like. And they need other people to respond to their own expressions of that complexity. These are the most precious things that people give to children in conversation as they grow up.”

Throughout the book, Turkle places the responsibility for empathy and conversation on parents. Children will learn their parents’ behavior. Emotional intelligence learned in childhood will benefit adulthood. Withholding conversation—or not prioritizing it—puts children at a disadvantage.