"RECLAIMING CONVERSATION: THE POWER OF TALK IN THE DIGITAL AGE"

In last Sunday’s, Sunday Review, Sherry Turkle, a professor at M.I.T., takes an excerpt from her book. “Reclaiming Conversation” to make some very salient and astute points…

When journalism and observation is this good…there is nothing to do but celebrate it and “ditto” it….with quotes, of course.

In 2010 a team at the University of Michigan led by the psychologist Sara Konrath put together the findings of 72 studies that were conducted over a 30 year period. They found a 40% decline in empathy among college students, with most of the decline taking place after 2000.

Across generations, technology is implicated in this assault on empathy. 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. But it is in this type of conversation –where we learn to make eye contact, to become aware of another person’s posture and tone, to comfort one another and respectfully challenge one another –that empathy and intimacy flourish. In these conversations, we learn who we are…

Of course, we can find empathic conversations today, but the trend line is not clear. It’s not only that we turn away from talking face to face to chat online. It’s that we don’t allow these conversations to happen in the first place because we keep our phones in the landscape.

There is also the question of solitude…or the lack of it.. The capacity for empathic conversation goes hand in hand with the capacity for solitude. In solitude we find ourselves; we prepare ourselves to come to conversation with something to say that is authentic, ours. If we can’t gather ourselves, we can’t recognize other people for who they are. If we are not content to be alone we turn others into the people we need them to be. If we don’t know how to be alone, we’ll only know how to be lonely.

A virtual circle links conversation to the capacity for self–reflection. When we are secure in ourselves, we are able to really hear what other people have to say. At the same time, conversation with other people, both in intimate settings and in larger social groups, leads us to become better at inner dialogue.

But, we turn time alone into a problem that needs to be solved with technology. Timothy D. Wilson, a psychologist at the University of Virginia led a team that explored our capacity for solitude. People were asked to sit in a chair and think, without a device or a book. They were told that they would have from six to 15 minutes alone and that the only rules were that they had to stay seated and not fall asleep. In one experiment many student subjects opted to give themselves mild electric shocks rather than sit alone with their thoughts.

But this way of dividing things up missed the essential connection between solitude and conversation. In solitude we learn to concentrate and imagine, to listen to ourselves. We need these sills to be fully present in conversation.

One step toward reclaiming conversation is to reclaim solitude. Some of the most crucial conversations you will ever have will be with yourself. Slow down sufficiently to make this possible. And make a practice of doing one thing at a time. Think of unitasking

My own opinion is that being content in being alone is, in part, based on how you feel about yourself. If you are comfortable with yourself and if you can stand up to the test of your own self scrutiny, not in deeds and accomplishments, but in your ability to be true to yourself and to your ideals, then being alone might be not only pleasurable, but regularly desirable.

If, on the other hand, you are someone who lacks integrity and is dishonest with yourself and others…then being with yourself can be something to avoid, something to run from…at all costs. At the very least it is crucial to learn to like and even love yourself.…to be able to comfort yourself when the time arises….to be able to talk yourself into a state of peace and rationality.

When I was young I had tremendous amounts of alone time...I had many friends but I was very comfortable being alone when walking home from school....going to the park..riding my bike...etc.. I think that skill is largely lost on pre-teens and teens today. When I do see kids who are alone they are invariably plugged into social media....it is a tremendous opportunity lost; the lost opportunity of creating a relationship and comfort with yourself...a friend for life.

Food for thought (alone)....