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Business. Family & Relationships. Sociology. Nonfiction. HTML: �??In a time in which the ways we communicate and connect are constantly changing, and not always for the better, Sherry Turkle provides a much needed voice of caution and reason to help explain what the f*** is going on.�?� �??Aziz Ansari, author of Modern Romance 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. Turkle's latest book, The Empathy Diaries (3/2/21)… (more)
User reviews
To be sure, the withering of real human connection that often accompanies our universal digital addiction is alarming. (I was especially aghast to consider how babies and toddlers whose parents' faces are turned too often to their phones instead of to their children may grow up with developmental and personality disorders due to insufficient "face time.") But sometimes Turkle doesn't give due consideration to the opposing side. That "woman in her thirties" on page 29 who talks about the advantages of arguing with her partner online has a point, I think: "We get our ideas out in a cooler way. We can fight without saying things we'll regret." I wouldn't be so quick to assume this is another example of "the move from conversation to mere connection."
Perhaps the only gap in the book for me was a more thorough discussion of the neurological reasons why (for instance) children who are on their smart phones all the time might be less empathic, or why we might seek out multitasking even though we never get better at it and it impairs performance drastically; to me, the big problem with our embrace of technology is its incompatibility with the weird, wonderful, complex, mysterious human brain and the way it operates.