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https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2015/10/02/sherry-turkle-power-talking-face-

face/r6RFoy1LZBT4gIk2I0WJoK/story.html

Sherry Turkle on the power of talking

(face to face)

By Ethan Gilsdorf Globe Correspondent

October 02, 2015

“Who in this cafe is talking?”

Sherry Turkle looks around a trendy coffee shop in Downtown Crossing. The walls are

lined with old tomes, a thematic decorative touch, but the books aren’t meant to be read.

Aside from Turkle and a guest, one other couple is chatting. Most patrons are hunched

over laptops and smart phones, working, texting, or watching something on a screen.

“So, we’ve got four people talking,” she sighs. “Two groups of two. OK, that’s not very

good.”

Turkle, 67, professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at Massachusetts

Institute of Technology and a prolific author, wants to have a conversation. About

conversation — and why so few people seem interested in having, or are able to have,

that face-to-face anymore.

The crisis of conversation is at the heart of Turkle’s new book, “Reclaiming

Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age.” With it, she hopes to spark a

discussion about what we lose when we settle for fleeting texts, sound bites, and status

updates, instead of pursuing meaningful, nuanced human connection.

“I had a question. All these people were saying, I’d rather text than talk,” says Turkle.

“What happens if in business, in education, in romance, and child-rearing, you text rather

than talk?”

A sociologist and clinical psychologist, Turkle has studied the link between conversation

and empathy, and how conversation supports self-reflection. In her new book, out

Tuesday, she argues that our reliance on our devices endangers our ability to cultivate

friendships, raise healthy kids, nurture intimate relationships, succeed on the job, and

engage in civic discourse. “Fortunately, there was a flood of quantitative studies that

supported what I was saying.”

The Boston-based Turkle finished writing “Reclaiming Conversation” in New York

while she was on sabbatical. She has written several other books that explore, as she puts

it, the intersection of “technology and identity,” including “The Second Self,” “Life on

the Screen,” and “Alone Together.”

Telling stories of individuals, “Reclaiming Conversation” explores technology’s

insidious effects on chitchat. There’s the father who — estranged from his child —

accompanies her on a school field trip, only to spend it uploading photos and status

updates rather than engaging her in conversation. There’s the college sophomore who’s

terrified to apologize to her roommate in person. Instead, she “talks” to her using Google

Chat.

Then there’s Turkle’s own experience of how digital life affects her interactions with

students. She implores them to visit her during office hours, but they won’t. Instead, they

send e-mails. They think e-mail allows them to “ask the perfect question so I can give

them the perfect, more valuable answer,” says Turkle, who speaks slowly and

methodically, sometimes pausing for effect. Face to face, her feisty manner belies the

restrained tone of her book. “What am I supposed to do,” she continues, “sit there at my

machine trying to be perfect?”

She laments not only the “transactional” nature of communication, but the demise of

conversational give-and-take, its wrong turns and discoveries that build understanding.

She also tracks more subtle effects of technology.

“If I put my phone on the table,” she says, gesturing at an iPhone in front of her, “the

nature of the conversation will change.”

Discussion, she says, becomes more superficial. People will shy away from serious talk.

She cites a 2015 study by the Pew Research Center: 89 percent of all cellphone users

report taking out their phones during their most recent social interaction, and 82 percent

of them said it detracted from their conversations. But they did it anyway.

‘I had a question. All these people were saying I’d rather text than talk. What happens if

in business, in education, in romance, and child-rearing, you text rather than talk?’

hile there’s warning and weariness in her voice, she insists “the book is not anti-

technology. It’s pro-conversation.” And she welcomes all rebuttals. “I want to hear the

positive argument for robot dolls. I want to hear the positive argument for kids who don’t

have conversations with their parents.”

Which is not to say that Turkle is some cranky technophobe. “I’ll pit my iPhone against

anyone else’s,” she says. “I’m very ‘phone.’ ” She’s as susceptible to technology’s siren

song as the next person. But unlike most of us, Turkle is not willing to accept the way our

devices limit our communication.

Despite the evidence she’s compiled, Turkle insists the situation is not all doom and

gloom. The solution is simple: Talk to each other.

“It is time to make the course corrections,” she writes. “We have everything we need to

begin. We have each other.”