We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.
Sherry Turkle
I am a partisan for conversation. To make room for it, I see some first, deliberate steps. At home, we can create sacred spaces: the kitchen, the dining room. We can make our cars 'device-free zones.' We can demonstrate the value of conversation to our children. And we can do the same thing at work.
Face-to-face conversation unfolds slowly. It teaches patience.
Technology doesn't just do things for us. It does things to us, changing not just what we do but who we are.
Technology challenges us to look at our human values. We can try to use technology to cure Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, which would be a blessing, but that blessing is not a reason to move from artificial brain enhancement to artificial intimacy.
Boredom is your imagination calling to you.
In solitude, we find ourselves; we prepare ourselves to come to conversation with something to say that is authentic, ours.
We think constant connection will make us feel less lonely. The opposite is true.
It is painful to watch children trying to show off for parents who are engrossed in their cell phones. Children are nostalgic for the 'good old days' when parents used to read to them without the cell phone by their side or watch football games or Disney movies without having the BlackBerry handy.
The selfie makes us accustomed to putting ourselves and those around us 'on pause' in order to document our lives. It is an extension of how we have learned to put our conversations 'on pause' when we send or receive a text, an image, an email, a call.
What is so seductive about texting, about keeping that phone on, about that little red light on the BlackBerry, is you want to know who wants you.
Our mobile devices are so powerful that they don't just change what we do, they're changing who we are.
Technology challenges us to assert our human values, which means that first of all, we have to figure out what they are.
If we don't know how to be alone, we'll only know how to be lonely.
In life, you are struck by the importance of presence, of the small moments of meaning, the miracle of your child's breath, the feelings of deep human connection. When you are thinking about technology, your mind is not on all of that.
I have to fight the impulse to use my phone as an alarm clock rather than leaving it in another room. If I don't, I will wake up in the middle of the night and think, 'I'll check my messages. Or the number of my book on Amazon.'
It used to be that people had a way of dealing with the world that was basically, 'I have a feeling, I want to make a call.' Now I would capture a way of dealing with the world, which is: 'I want to have a feeling, I need to send a text.'
When I grew up, I lived in a neighborhood that had social clubs. It's never delightful to glamorize one's youth. My neighborhood was poor. But people felt part of the neighborhood. This was in Rockaway Beach, Long Island.
If you're constantly stimulated by being called away to the buzzing and the excitement of what's on your phone, solitude seems kind of scary.
Everybody wants a robot that will do psychotherapy. But If you don't have empathy, you don't have psychotherapy. The robot doesn't know about life.
My highest value is not that the trains are on time. I want to be free.
Teenagers talk about the idea of having each other's 'full attention.' They grew up in a culture of distraction. They remember their parents were on cell phones when they were pushed on swings as toddlers. Now, their parents text at the dinner table and don't look up from their BlackBerry when they come for end-of-school day pickup.
The most used program in computers and education is PowerPoint. What are you learning about the nature of the medium by knowing how do to a great PowerPoint presentation? Nothing. It certainly doesn't teach you how to think critically about living in a culture of simulation.
Conversation is the most human and humanizing thing that we do.
What I'm seeing is a generation that says consistently, 'I would rather text than make a telephone call.' Why? It's less risky. I can just get the information out there. I don't have to get all involved; it's more efficient. I would rather text than see somebody face to face.
I think that we live in techno-enthusiastic times. We celebrate our technologies because people are frightened by the world we've made.
Teenagers would rather text than talk. They feel calls would reveal too much.
There are moments of opportunity for families; moments they need to put technology away. These include: no phones or texting during meals. No phones or texting when parents pick up children at school - a child is looking to make eye contact with a parent!
It used to be that we imagined that our mobile phones would be for us to talk to each other. Now, our mobile phones are there to talk to us.
I think few people of education enter politics because it seems like a contact blood sport.
I've been studying the psychology of online connectivity for more than 30 years.
You'll always feel lonely if you always need validation. People don't like to be around those kinds of people.
I think computers are the ultimate writing tool. I'm a very slow writer, so I appreciate it every day.
Hold on to your passion - you'll need it!
I love sharing photographs and websites, I'm for all of these things. I'm for Facebook. But to say that this is sociability? We begin to define things in terms of what technology enables and technology allows.
We are inhibited from aggression by the presence of another face, another person. We're aware that we're with a human being. On the Internet, we are disinhibited from taking into full account that we are in the presence of another human being.
Thumbs up or thumbs down on a website is not a conversation. The danger is you get into a habit of mind where politics means giving a thumbs up or thumbs down to a website. The world is a much more complex place.
People thought I was very pro-computer. I was on the cover of 'Wired' magazine. Then things began to change. In the early '80s, we met this technology and became smitten like young lovers. But today our attachment is unhealthy.
A selfie, like any photograph, interrupts experience to mark the moment. In this, it shares something with all the other ways we break up our day: when we text during class, in meetings, at the theater, at dinners with friends.
The selfie, like all technology, causes us to reflect on our human values. This is a good thing because it challenges us to figure out what they really are.
If people start to buy the idea that machines are great companions for the elderly or for children, as they increasingly seem to do, we are really playing with fire.
I am not anti-technology; I am pro-conversation.
I am a single mum. I raised my daughter, and she was very listened to.
