I am a professional executive coach and I have done coaching over phone too ..but I can with personal experience comment that both for me as a coach and for execs being coached, one on one physical conversations with phones out of sight is the best experience. This is across age groups.
6
I worry about what is happening to our society. 140 characters does not capture the important state of our lives when we are engaging with friends.
I can't imagine what would have resulted from important conversations had some friends texted me instead of calling - I suspect at least one life would have been lost,.
And I really really do not get people who are on their phones during live theater. Those people could be on the street for a lot less money, and probably should be, since they are missing profound dilemmas in the best of theater. Worse yet, they are costing those of us who really want to see the play the opportunity to be immersed in it as their 'set to stun' bright screens distract the actors as well as the audience.
I can't imagine what would have resulted from important conversations had some friends texted me instead of calling - I suspect at least one life would have been lost,.
And I really really do not get people who are on their phones during live theater. Those people could be on the street for a lot less money, and probably should be, since they are missing profound dilemmas in the best of theater. Worse yet, they are costing those of us who really want to see the play the opportunity to be immersed in it as their 'set to stun' bright screens distract the actors as well as the audience.
17
This touches why most young adults act like their being auditioned for a beer commercial in public. Wouldn't want to appear "boring" unless they're offering advice on something to commidify.
2
How any article about the value of talking and the art of conversation that does not mention "My Dinner With Andre" boggles my mind.
Additionally, considering that only 10% of any face to face communication is verbal how can modern phone contact compare to Meat Space, F-2-F interactions? Voice at least can carry nuance and expressions which can be so subtly timed and tuned no emoticon can quite match it.
Having spent decades reading university grad and undergrad papers I can assure you very few are masterful with the written word and what little quality they had 30 years ago is rapidly dropping.
Additionally, considering that only 10% of any face to face communication is verbal how can modern phone contact compare to Meat Space, F-2-F interactions? Voice at least can carry nuance and expressions which can be so subtly timed and tuned no emoticon can quite match it.
Having spent decades reading university grad and undergrad papers I can assure you very few are masterful with the written word and what little quality they had 30 years ago is rapidly dropping.
3
Even if you consider all conversations a transaction, relationship building requires a face to face interchange. It is possible to gauge when someone is lying in person. A carefully edited written statement does not reveal body language, tells, undue emphasis or spontaneous contradictory use of language. Relationships generally are based upon trust.
8
We have lost the concept of an "Inner Life!" Silence is to be avoided at all costs...so we use YouTube, TV, phones... ANYTHING to avoid being with our inner selves or to avoid sharing that inner quiet with a kindred being. Sad.
10
Communication of any sort requires engagement of the entire personality, which means that sensory input occurs on multiple levels in order to have the message understood. It also requires pauses where the viewer or listener can think about and absorb information in order to make sense of what is just occurred. Compare, for example, a conversation between two people sitting in a café in full view of one another. Words are spoken and information exchanged, but there is also inflection and body language that amplifies what is said, and enhances the dimensionality of its meaning.
Now take that same dialogue and subtract one or more of the sensory elements that made it meaningful. Removing the visual element leaves a disembodied voice that can easily be misinterpreted or misremembered, especially if what has been heard triggers an internal response that overlays some part of the message, like a voiceover in a dramatic production. We don't hear what has been said because our own internal dialogue overrides what came next.
Sometimes, speech becomes so rapid that we lose understanding what is been said. As proof, watch a recorded dramatic confrontation with, and without close captioning on, and you will find that the un-captioned dialogue is frequently overlooked, misheard, or misremembered.
Recorded transcripts are better at conveying factual information, but they leave out the human element.
Face-to-face communication is usually better at every level of understanding.
Now take that same dialogue and subtract one or more of the sensory elements that made it meaningful. Removing the visual element leaves a disembodied voice that can easily be misinterpreted or misremembered, especially if what has been heard triggers an internal response that overlays some part of the message, like a voiceover in a dramatic production. We don't hear what has been said because our own internal dialogue overrides what came next.
Sometimes, speech becomes so rapid that we lose understanding what is been said. As proof, watch a recorded dramatic confrontation with, and without close captioning on, and you will find that the un-captioned dialogue is frequently overlooked, misheard, or misremembered.
Recorded transcripts are better at conveying factual information, but they leave out the human element.
Face-to-face communication is usually better at every level of understanding.
2
I have always disliked rotary phones and now I equally dislike cell phones. I love one to one conversations with others. I have a cell phone. It's shut off most the day and I never pull it out while I am with others. I will say please put down your phone and talk to me.
3
That jinni's not going back into the lamp any time soon. Great idea, though.
Descartes wrote, "I think, therefore I am."
I believe Descartes would be really bummed out if he was alive today. He would probably write something like this: "I talk and text on the cell phone, therefore I'm not."
I believe Descartes would be really bummed out if he was alive today. He would probably write something like this: "I talk and text on the cell phone, therefore I'm not."
9
I am 27 and almost anytime I get together with my friends, cell phones come out of people's pockets and placed on the table as soon as we sit down and play with them when they are not engaged in the conversation. I see what exactly the commenter does all the time. I get very frustrated that they think they don't have something to contribute to the conversation that they should just look at their Instragram and Facebook feed via their phone. What is even more difficult is to tell your friend to put their phone away without being rude. It makes me feel that they don't care about me, and I don't want to spend time with them. This is serious problem that is destroying my friendships. The only time I take my phone out, I explain my reasoning (waiting for an important call/text) and apologize profusely.
In regards to the student/professor relationship: I am bad at explaining myself in person when I don't get a concept in a course. If I am able to write out my thoughts and think through why I am confused, I am able to help better explain myself to my professor and get the proper help. I do also go and talk with my professors in person because I see the importance in connecting an email to a student.
In regards to the student/professor relationship: I am bad at explaining myself in person when I don't get a concept in a course. If I am able to write out my thoughts and think through why I am confused, I am able to help better explain myself to my professor and get the proper help. I do also go and talk with my professors in person because I see the importance in connecting an email to a student.
8
This article is spot on ! I have found that my life is definitely more interesting when I spend less time on FB, Twitter and the like. Those are the time that I get to live my life, and enjoy it, and not read about other lives !
5
After college comes...oh yeah, a job. Sitting in a classroom is not nearly as boring as sitting in a job interview, so then what? Pull out the cell phone and begin texting? This actually happened to a friend of mine who was interviewing a young lady regarding a position within his company, where this exact scenario played out. I see a lifetime of standing in the unemployment line for this individual...
Nothing can, or will, EVER replace the longstanding face-to-face process of communicating with one another. Body language and facial expressions can say things that "words alone" cannot. We are creating a generation of young people who possess absolutely no social skills, and cannot even write one sentence without an array of typos, due to texting.
And then there's e-mail, instagram, tweeting and Facebook. I just find it ironic that Facebook is called Facebook, when the only "faces" you see are those in photographs, posed to create an image of what one's life appears to be, not what it really is.
What scares me even more, is that when this same generation reaches the age in which they can begin voting, you can bet they will have no problem operating the next-best voting machine mechanics...the sad thing is that they will have no idea who to vote for.
Nothing can, or will, EVER replace the longstanding face-to-face process of communicating with one another. Body language and facial expressions can say things that "words alone" cannot. We are creating a generation of young people who possess absolutely no social skills, and cannot even write one sentence without an array of typos, due to texting.
And then there's e-mail, instagram, tweeting and Facebook. I just find it ironic that Facebook is called Facebook, when the only "faces" you see are those in photographs, posed to create an image of what one's life appears to be, not what it really is.
What scares me even more, is that when this same generation reaches the age in which they can begin voting, you can bet they will have no problem operating the next-best voting machine mechanics...the sad thing is that they will have no idea who to vote for.
10
I'm no curmudgeon, but I do stubbornly refuse to be beholden to the "benefits" & expectations that often accompany technology these days. If I had $1000 for every time asked "Did you get my text?" or "Why didn't you respond to my text?", I'd be typing this from somewhere other than my office during a lunch break.
This said, live & in-person conversations, poorly timed, can serve as even greater inconveniences. I guess I'm somewhere in the middle on this topic.
This said, live & in-person conversations, poorly timed, can serve as even greater inconveniences. I guess I'm somewhere in the middle on this topic.
3
I totally disagree with your inference from the comments of Mr. Middleton, when you write "I have heard this objection before: In order for conversation to earn its right to be attended to, it needs to be compelling and novel. ... So, if these are your values and you find yourself in a conversation, there is pressure to be interesting and to perform."
Your conclusion doesn't necessarily follow. There's an old adage that's sometimes attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, but the origin is uncertain: "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."
If you're interested in ideas, you don't ever feel pressure to be interesting and to perform; your conversation is interesting to start with. On the other hand, if you talk about people and People Magazine and the Kardashians, then no matter how hard you try, you'll never be interesting to many people. It's not a question of pressure or performing; some folks are just more interesting than others. You've made an unwarranted assumption from Mr. Middleton's comment.
Your conclusion doesn't necessarily follow. There's an old adage that's sometimes attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, but the origin is uncertain: "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."
If you're interested in ideas, you don't ever feel pressure to be interesting and to perform; your conversation is interesting to start with. On the other hand, if you talk about people and People Magazine and the Kardashians, then no matter how hard you try, you'll never be interesting to many people. It's not a question of pressure or performing; some folks are just more interesting than others. You've made an unwarranted assumption from Mr. Middleton's comment.
1
My first career as a college professor predates the smartphone-obsession era, having ended in 1995. But there's one comment I've always made about that career, which I believe is valid to this day: the best teaching/learning episodes occurred in my office, crammed to capacity with on-order 10 students, in which ideas and misconceptions flowed freely around the small room replete with Socratic dialogues, and students felt supported by both me and by one another. Next most important were one-on-ones, in which weaker students or those lacking good English-language skills were bolstered by my support. In the intervening years, i still hear comments such as: "I would've dropped out had you not supported me personally." I can't imagine that email would've been a viable substitute for those many face-to-face hours. Folks who opine that the immediacy of that face-to-face dialogue is "boring" either have a lot of growing-up to do, or may be condemned to spend their lives in narcissistic shells from which --- like Herr Trump --- they will mostly insult, demean, and harm anyone "in their way." Good luck with that!
45
What do we lose with that Turkle has called "always on, always on you" technologies?
Here is what I will most recall: on a long and slow train ride across southern Spain, I listened, rapt, to a fellow passenger talk to his friends as I daydreamed and looked out the carriage window. My Spanish is good, and I could follow his words but it was the sound of a perfect speaking voice, the musicality of his remarks and his friends' replies. This man I never met held the floor, while he and his friends conversed politely for hours, until we returned to Sevilla.
Will such impromptu live theatre go extinct? Probably not, but in the eternal now of the smart phone, and eventually the implanted technologies that will follow, such verbal music will be on the endangered list.
Here is what I will most recall: on a long and slow train ride across southern Spain, I listened, rapt, to a fellow passenger talk to his friends as I daydreamed and looked out the carriage window. My Spanish is good, and I could follow his words but it was the sound of a perfect speaking voice, the musicality of his remarks and his friends' replies. This man I never met held the floor, while he and his friends conversed politely for hours, until we returned to Sevilla.
Will such impromptu live theatre go extinct? Probably not, but in the eternal now of the smart phone, and eventually the implanted technologies that will follow, such verbal music will be on the endangered list.
20
In the current society were everything has to be productivity and performance, showing who we really are,our vulnerabilities,our inperfeccions is not wellcomed ...we might be judged,assesed.... and discarded...at the same time we don't want to see "the other" as it really is...we seems to have the need to believe that we live in a world were everything is perfectly organized,,there is no space ,time or patience for just been,for emotional exploration,for spontaneous social/emotional transactions....I am glad that I am old enough to still experience "wasting" my time with friends!
8
Seeing people walking down the sidewalk with their phones held in front of them like a talisman reminds me of the scene from Monty Python the Holy Grail, where monks walk down a street and whack themselves in the foreheads with planks of wood.
Full disclosure, I'm a tech-lover, use it for my day job and my hobbies, build my own PCs, use OSX and WinX, own multiple desktops, yadda yadda.
But I fear for the future of our social fabric... and I'm 45, so I have a lot to be 'a-fearin'... These zombies (that find normal conversation "boring" and are unsure of how to handle silence or deep thought) will be the folks in charge when I'm asking them to get off my lawn.
Full disclosure, I'm a tech-lover, use it for my day job and my hobbies, build my own PCs, use OSX and WinX, own multiple desktops, yadda yadda.
But I fear for the future of our social fabric... and I'm 45, so I have a lot to be 'a-fearin'... These zombies (that find normal conversation "boring" and are unsure of how to handle silence or deep thought) will be the folks in charge when I'm asking them to get off my lawn.
32
Boredom is the opportunity for productive day dreaming. Why would one want to eschew such opportunities?
25
I have used Sherry Turkle's book and articles in my freshmen comp classes. They give my students and me lots to talk and write about. Many students, like Randall here, are borderline if not actively hostile to any suggestion that their cellphone use may be compromising their ability to interact with others. Some of these students remind me of the guy in the old anti-smoking commercial who said, "I'm smoking two cigarettes at once and yet the thing is not a habit . . . ."
As for boredom, I tell my students that it's a state of mind. It doesn't exist in any real sense unless they allow themselves to succumb to it. This also leads to good discussions because many of them want desperately to believe that if something doesn't interest them then it must be (cue the drum roll) boring.
Of course, this "problem" isn't confined to the very young. My wife and I frequently see parents in restaurants paying absolutely no attention to their children because the parents are fixated on their phones. Some of my students complain about "never having a sit-down dinner when everyone wasn't on their phone."
As for boredom, I tell my students that it's a state of mind. It doesn't exist in any real sense unless they allow themselves to succumb to it. This also leads to good discussions because many of them want desperately to believe that if something doesn't interest them then it must be (cue the drum roll) boring.
Of course, this "problem" isn't confined to the very young. My wife and I frequently see parents in restaurants paying absolutely no attention to their children because the parents are fixated on their phones. Some of my students complain about "never having a sit-down dinner when everyone wasn't on their phone."
12
Much of the defense for using devices is the result of getting hooked on devices and it is a continuous feedback to reinforce the malady. One behavior described is particularly strange. They bring into their conversation material from fully unknown strangers from YouTube or other sources on the Web and this comforts them. Essentially they have the poor man's version of the concert maister the king turns to in the movie Amadeus when he wants to say something to Mozart but cannot figure out what: "How does one say ..." and then concludes "too many notes". Not knowing something is no disgrace, pretending to have something to say based on unknown sources is. We have done very well for millennia without digital technology, even until 20 short years ago. It is not that we cannot, but we do not want to, perhaps we have learned (all too quickly) not to carry a personal conversation without the interference of digital devices. Not healthy at all.
3
Good reply to article. All the need for distraction, or entertainment or something to talk about or filled space or what have you people seem to need when with others makes me wonder how rare it is for two or more people to just "be" together, which is to say be comfortable sitting quietly together or walking without talking. My experience is that true friends can be together for a long amount of time without having anything to say (and without being so much engaged with any device or anything as just daydreaming). And I wonder how often pets fulfill this "silent, natural function of togetherness" in modern times. In other words we cannot really engage in conversation with a pet but we can often just be with a pet in a way we cannot be with other people. Our personal relationships seem to have to be anything but a silent "sinking deeply into one another", which makes us ask if there can really be love in modern times.
A good study to make would be behavior of people together in automobiles. So many people seem to need to be distracted in a car whether that means radio or chattering away or engaged with some device or micromanaging the driver's capacity to handle automobile. I wonder if we can zero in on optimal personality by examining behavior of people within automobile. "Behavior of people within a confined, moving and dangerous environment with purpose of determining ideal personality for similar types of environment not to mention space exploration".
A good study to make would be behavior of people together in automobiles. So many people seem to need to be distracted in a car whether that means radio or chattering away or engaged with some device or micromanaging the driver's capacity to handle automobile. I wonder if we can zero in on optimal personality by examining behavior of people within automobile. "Behavior of people within a confined, moving and dangerous environment with purpose of determining ideal personality for similar types of environment not to mention space exploration".
5
It breaks my heart, and worries me, when I see mothers (and fathers, and caretakers) driving or walking around with children in tow...talking to someone else on their cell phones or texting/reading their phones.
What does a generation look like that was raised by people who didn't speak directly to them, spoke to someone else on a phone, with the child hearing only one side of a conversation? How can that be a good thing?
What does a generation look like that was raised by people who didn't speak directly to them, spoke to someone else on a phone, with the child hearing only one side of a conversation? How can that be a good thing?
19
The market serves its customers. Some people don't converse because they can't... having been raised in an environment where conversation isn't valued or learned. Yet these folks are not necessarily hermits; they seek social contact. Loud restaurants, engineered with sound reflective surfaces and booming music allow their guests to "go out" without being expected to participate in conversation.
4
Fleeting conversations with utter strangers about inconsequential topics are the most interesting, in my opinion. Which is why I make a point of chatting up people wherever I go. Some act annoyed, but most think a little repartee is amusing and engage readily with a question or comment. Even those face down checking out their phone.
7
Discussion of this topic gets sillier and sillier. None of these people seem to understand that conversation is a two way street. If the convesation is boring, you are, at least partially responsible. If your phone is more entertaining than you are why bother with relationships at all? Yet, everyone seems to need instant gratification 24/7. Solitude has become anathema for phone users. No wonder they're boring, they never think about anything.
25
Students should also realize that there is also a practical benefit to one-on-one conversation: a professor will be far more likely to write a meaningful recommendation for someone they remember in a human form, not as just words on a screen. And in today's competitive job market, such a letter can be crucial.
7
I cannot even begin to tell all of you how incredibly challenging it is to confront all our technology as a high school teacher...I am forever confiscating phones. Students don't want to engage with text; they would rather text someone another banal observation: "I'm bored. What are you doing?" To which their friend will reply: "Nothing. In chemistry; bored." Except delete all the punctuation I just put in those texts--actualy texts--I have read plenty. Kids will listen to music rather than to me or to their classmates; kids will scroll through internet banter rather than delve deeply into Achebe or Hurston or Steinbeck. It is a tragedy unfolding. To those of you who might think, well, maybe your class is boring: I am well liked by students and when I finally wrestle away, lecture away the cell phones they do well. They genuinely enjoy the novel more than any movie version--happens every time--and yet, they are convinced they are missing out on something terribly important if they aren't accessing their phones every other minute. Am close to hanging it all up (pun intended) because I am so tired of this battle. If one requires continual entertainment then I fear for this nation, because our students no longer understand the concepts of focus, of critical thinking, which takes time, effort and concentration. Good luck to all future teachers--this is hell.
42
Eva,
Yes, fear for this nation. You might even start practicing mourning for human society as it once was.
I have been able to reach some, but only some of my community college students each year. Those I do reach realize that they are discovering (wonderful but, here, a sad word) how truly huge, mysterious, and wonderful-agonizing-awful-inspring-etc. the world can be when divorced from that 5 X 3 inch screen and all their commercially pre-packaged conceptions of society.
That said, I am glad, in a very disillusioned way, that I am only a year or two from retirement. My friends and I learned the sheer joy of talking to each other, explaining experiences, relating discoveries both monumental and mundane, making stuff up, telling each other preposterous lies, and way more on school buses beginning in 4th grade. By adulthood, the game had become nearly professional and acquaintances wanted to be in attendance to hear the badinage and banter and share the hilarity. Teaching kids to enjoy being alive as physical beings in the presence of other physical beings begins to pall when the kids are over twenty.
Humans are meant to talk to each other, and life is not just data. Stop "sharing" and "friending." Just share with your friends, in person.
Yes, fear for this nation. You might even start practicing mourning for human society as it once was.
I have been able to reach some, but only some of my community college students each year. Those I do reach realize that they are discovering (wonderful but, here, a sad word) how truly huge, mysterious, and wonderful-agonizing-awful-inspring-etc. the world can be when divorced from that 5 X 3 inch screen and all their commercially pre-packaged conceptions of society.
That said, I am glad, in a very disillusioned way, that I am only a year or two from retirement. My friends and I learned the sheer joy of talking to each other, explaining experiences, relating discoveries both monumental and mundane, making stuff up, telling each other preposterous lies, and way more on school buses beginning in 4th grade. By adulthood, the game had become nearly professional and acquaintances wanted to be in attendance to hear the badinage and banter and share the hilarity. Teaching kids to enjoy being alive as physical beings in the presence of other physical beings begins to pall when the kids are over twenty.
Humans are meant to talk to each other, and life is not just data. Stop "sharing" and "friending." Just share with your friends, in person.
9
"For him, most people are simply not that interesting, in any medium."
That's why when anyone around me exults about "social media" I am the grump to say "it's anti-social media." But it's interesting. In a world where many are used to interacting with other people in a gaming community, or a self defined (and often woefully exaggerated) profile on dating sites, geared to making themselves attractive but not accurate, where they can control their world by including or excluding people on a whim, what comes next?
As one wag said, when Facebook went down, people would go up to perfect strangers and plead "will you LIKE me?" Human interaction, at last.
That's why when anyone around me exults about "social media" I am the grump to say "it's anti-social media." But it's interesting. In a world where many are used to interacting with other people in a gaming community, or a self defined (and often woefully exaggerated) profile on dating sites, geared to making themselves attractive but not accurate, where they can control their world by including or excluding people on a whim, what comes next?
As one wag said, when Facebook went down, people would go up to perfect strangers and plead "will you LIKE me?" Human interaction, at last.
6
What pathetic times we live in that people are even having this "discussion."
7
My work career has spanned 3+ decades. Many of my clients I only meet on the phone, or via email, even before email being invented and life inside a computer began.
Some of my most satisfying client relationships have been the telephone and email ones, face-to-face isn't the key. The key is listening, reading and paying attention to details. Being engaged. Being warm. Doing the job, and supporting the person whether you are the mentee or the mentor, or the client, or the service provider.
All the focus on face-to-face misses most of the point -- young people today don't seem to be able to pay attention. And if you cannot pay attention, you cannot connect.
Some of my most satisfying client relationships have been the telephone and email ones, face-to-face isn't the key. The key is listening, reading and paying attention to details. Being engaged. Being warm. Doing the job, and supporting the person whether you are the mentee or the mentor, or the client, or the service provider.
All the focus on face-to-face misses most of the point -- young people today don't seem to be able to pay attention. And if you cannot pay attention, you cannot connect.
12
Bravo, Sherry Turkle! How else to really accept ourselves and others except to allow the myriad parts of ourselves to be expressed in conversation, communion, connection. The point is interaction, not attainment. It's very interesting that Dr. Turkle has made this voyage after some 3 decades of commitment to the technological cause. No one can accuse her of dismissing the possibilities of technology. It's just, she concludes, that technology is not enough to bring us to our best possibilities. I came to the same conclusion about Facebook and most uses of social media, and wrote about it here: http://nydn.us/1HTNIkc
2
Another factor working in concert is that as more people are invested in their devices, they actually do become less interesting. All they have to talk about is what they have on their phones or Facebook, or shallow Twitter-level chatter. Few have read a book or been to a museum or traveled, and if they have, they have little insight to offer about it... Making the phone or internet seem more inviting a companion, and continuing the spiral.
15
Ironically (perhaps) it was on Facebook that I read this little gem that has remained with me: "Listen to understand, not to reply."
18
Those who constantly get off the Metro, and can't even get up the escalator without checking their phones and banging away at a 'response' to some likely inane comment from another similar person?
They are the Walking Dead.
They are the Walking Dead.
27
I've been correctly labeled as an individual who doesn't pick up on implied messages. Perhaps that's why I'm confused by Ms Turke's essay and some of the comments.
It seems to me there are three types of communication being discussed or alluded to. "Face to face" in my opinion requires the concurrent physical presence of the communicating parties.
The word "phone" should perhaps not be used at all since it's ambiguous since it can be interpreted to mean either a phone call or texting via a phone device. The phrase "phone call" or "phone conversation" should be used for auditory communication.
Finally, the words text or texting should be used when that is being done and the word phone should not be not used.
I'm being picky because to me, if the communication being labeled here as "face to face" really includes phone conversations it is not at all clear. People can, for all intensive purposes have a meaningful conversation without the physical presence implied by "face to face".
It seems to me there are three types of communication being discussed or alluded to. "Face to face" in my opinion requires the concurrent physical presence of the communicating parties.
The word "phone" should perhaps not be used at all since it's ambiguous since it can be interpreted to mean either a phone call or texting via a phone device. The phrase "phone call" or "phone conversation" should be used for auditory communication.
Finally, the words text or texting should be used when that is being done and the word phone should not be not used.
I'm being picky because to me, if the communication being labeled here as "face to face" really includes phone conversations it is not at all clear. People can, for all intensive purposes have a meaningful conversation without the physical presence implied by "face to face".
Isn't the onus on me to at least ask for what I want from a friend? It may be awkward or ultimately unsuccessful, but maybe, "I miss you" is a good place to start.
5
As a child I and my friends were brought up to know you never called people during dinner time (5:30 - 7:00) or late in the evening or both you and the friend called would be in deep doodoo. Had that not been the case we would have chatted away during the entire meal and talked late into the night.
As an adult but before cell phones I had a friend who would always answer her house phone even while we were eating. She knew there was nothing urgent and she had an answering machine but she could not ignore the ring - or turn it off. It was just as annoying as sitting at a table with someone who cannot ignore their cell phone. Now the problem is just more pervasive because the phone goes everywhere.
We need to have social rules - and stigmas - around the use of these devices. This will help people use technology in a mindful way that enhances their lives.
Maybe if people begin to realize they look like pathetic puppets under the control of their devices, not cool and modern they will take begin to take control.
This conversation is a good start.
As an adult but before cell phones I had a friend who would always answer her house phone even while we were eating. She knew there was nothing urgent and she had an answering machine but she could not ignore the ring - or turn it off. It was just as annoying as sitting at a table with someone who cannot ignore their cell phone. Now the problem is just more pervasive because the phone goes everywhere.
We need to have social rules - and stigmas - around the use of these devices. This will help people use technology in a mindful way that enhances their lives.
Maybe if people begin to realize they look like pathetic puppets under the control of their devices, not cool and modern they will take begin to take control.
This conversation is a good start.
24
"Pathetic puppets under the control of their devices." What a great image!
6
Am fine with nostalgia but let's not get carried away. Ebooks have taken over paper books. Newspaper delivery is history. Nobody writes thank-you notes in long-hand, licks a stamp to it anymore. Heck, even calling customer service is passé. Which is why calls get routed to call centers abroad. They figure anyone calling customer service isn't very smart to start with, so the run-around starts the second you hit dial.
Patience for face-2-face is wearing thin. Why? Simply because it is too slow, uni-dimensional, not anyplace anywhere. There's really no contest. Its not just students who prefer email, try asking teachers-professors. Many are heaving sighs of relief, going the next step, recording class videos for download, complete with slides and subtitles.
There's clearly a (huge) cost starting with lack of empathy and loss of EQ. But it's a price people are willingly paying in increasing numbers. Will painting them as immature nerds with awkward social skills help stem the tide? Worth a shot but I doubt it. Companies are trying too, bringing walls down, forcing people to walk, talk, anything but click on Send. It'll work but disappear the minute it's not forced down people's throats.
This stuff is here to stay. If you aren't on Facebook, Twitter, LI, and don't text, email, tweet, thumbs-up, smiley, guess what, you don't have social skills.
Sorry (:
Patience for face-2-face is wearing thin. Why? Simply because it is too slow, uni-dimensional, not anyplace anywhere. There's really no contest. Its not just students who prefer email, try asking teachers-professors. Many are heaving sighs of relief, going the next step, recording class videos for download, complete with slides and subtitles.
There's clearly a (huge) cost starting with lack of empathy and loss of EQ. But it's a price people are willingly paying in increasing numbers. Will painting them as immature nerds with awkward social skills help stem the tide? Worth a shot but I doubt it. Companies are trying too, bringing walls down, forcing people to walk, talk, anything but click on Send. It'll work but disappear the minute it's not forced down people's throats.
This stuff is here to stay. If you aren't on Facebook, Twitter, LI, and don't text, email, tweet, thumbs-up, smiley, guess what, you don't have social skills.
Sorry (:
3
Your first sentence may be correct, but the seconding reveals a profound bias. Fortunately I've no need to spend any time in your cacoon of contempt.
There is something charming and sincere about the urge to share and entertain. I'm old enough to remember the days of laboriously assembling mix-tapes for someone important as a gesture of time committed for friendship.
The ten years or so since the web has been in everyone's pocket has confused all of this. We extend a similar gesture, but impulsively, some would say compulsively. And posting complicates it. Douglas Rushkoff has observed that kids don't put up posters in their rooms as before because their walls are now public, performative. They are always on. This adds stress and diminishes tolerance for the qualities of conversation that you describe where awkward silences must be tolerated until something transpires between present company to take the conversation to somewhere intimate or to a shared conclusion. Our phones paper over these moments of awkwardness, as you suggest. Without practice, the easier path will become the routine.
I think that composition is one way to form an answer to reflexive phone habits. These devices have great potential to advance creative composition and are often used this way by making movies or capturing experiences for later assembly. Many new apps such as Recently are geared to a kind of recognition that we have lost something in the way we relate to each other and the world. And if we've already given or kids smartphones, well then..... let's show them through our own habits....etc. Please put away your phone for a while.
The ten years or so since the web has been in everyone's pocket has confused all of this. We extend a similar gesture, but impulsively, some would say compulsively. And posting complicates it. Douglas Rushkoff has observed that kids don't put up posters in their rooms as before because their walls are now public, performative. They are always on. This adds stress and diminishes tolerance for the qualities of conversation that you describe where awkward silences must be tolerated until something transpires between present company to take the conversation to somewhere intimate or to a shared conclusion. Our phones paper over these moments of awkwardness, as you suggest. Without practice, the easier path will become the routine.
I think that composition is one way to form an answer to reflexive phone habits. These devices have great potential to advance creative composition and are often used this way by making movies or capturing experiences for later assembly. Many new apps such as Recently are geared to a kind of recognition that we have lost something in the way we relate to each other and the world. And if we've already given or kids smartphones, well then..... let's show them through our own habits....etc. Please put away your phone for a while.
1
College-going Millennials, for all their weekend riots, are usually awkward in person. Their favored word is "sorry." Yet their all-devouring hyperparents are just as addicted to their phones. I am glad I am older, in times like this. I know how a lover of horses felt early in the 20th Century.
8
Transactional indeed. It seems that young folks increasingly view relationships in terms of what "I get out of them," i.e., someone must bring information or entertainment in order to be worth my attention. There is a saying, "The mark of true friendship is being able to sit together comfortably in silence." There is beauty in being able to just be - to just be with another person companionably without having to get or give anything other than presence. I am of another generation, but had long deeply treasured good conversation with good friends. We can talk for hours, but come only with a love for and interest in each other. During such conversations there is careful listening, thoughtful contemplation, and times of silence as one or the other considers a question or thinks further about a point or simply waits for a friend to do the same.
If one of those friends pulled out a phone and began to surf the web or read Facebook during our conversation, I would take it as a clear message that they were done with me for now or maybe bored with my presence/our friendship (note, I have been on Facebook for years and am far from a technophobe). It is sad that so many are not allowing themselves the pleasure of deep and meandering conversations.
If one of those friends pulled out a phone and began to surf the web or read Facebook during our conversation, I would take it as a clear message that they were done with me for now or maybe bored with my presence/our friendship (note, I have been on Facebook for years and am far from a technophobe). It is sad that so many are not allowing themselves the pleasure of deep and meandering conversations.
37
"Warning: Driver Talks to Strangers", reads the sticker on my motorcycle. I try to impress upon my college-age daughters that unexpected good things happen when you engage others face to face, even if they were strangers just a minute ago. Engaging strangers takes a bit of courage but it eventually builds self-confidence. Of course, on the other hand I am frequently just an embarrassment to my daughters.
31
I adore people like you.
1
I have a dear friend whom I love, but I don't love her cellphone. When she comes over for dinner, I feel like I should set a place at the table for it.
22
If the conversation is boring maybe it is you.
16
Please explain Danny. Is your comment intended as criticism or are you trying to provide insight that may explain the topic at hand? If it's the former, why bother. If it's the later, pray tell....
I still remember things that teachers said to me a half century ago. No cell phones then. Also, when I ask someone a question, I usually stop talking after the initial question. The silence prompts the other person to come up with ideas - usually very helpful ideas. Even when the answer would be NO then the person might suggest helpful alternatives like where I might find an item that their store does not carry.
9
We're all connected, and so alone.
13
A person has interesting conversation if they do interesting things in life. If your job is dull, then you can make up for it by having an interesting hobby. Doing fun things that don't involve technology gives you valuable character building skills a computer or cell phone can never do. Get out there an explore, don't be a bore!
10
I find that the only time I have to talk to my family and friends is while I am in the car. I love my blue tooth phone that allows me to talk while driving, and it allows me to use time that otherwise would be wasted. I call clients, my dad, friends and my office, and find there is nothing wrong with that.
3
The people on the other end might find something wrong with that. I don't like being called by someone in a car when I know they are filling time that would otherwise be "wasted". I don't want to be your "filler". Call someone else!
5
I imagine the other drivers you are in traffic with don't share your opinion of how benign phone use is while driving.
Driving is an activity, not time wasted.
Ask the persons in the other car you might hit if there is something wrong with that.
Ask the persons in the other car you might hit if there is something wrong with that.
5
There's far to much cellphone talk, texting and emailing out there. It's no substitute for face-to-face interaction and socialization. I work in a place where even the person in the next office prefers to email or IM me, instead of getting off his seat to chat with me live. True social interaction, instead of digital interaction, promotes a sense of well-being and camaraderie that a cellphone text or IM simply cannot offer. Our young people are transfixed on their "devices" at virtually every moment, regardless of the setting. We all need to break free from the things that are, after all, merely a bunch of circuits and connections that offer instant, albeit limited gratification and re-learn the time-tested ways of the pre-digital age. Have a real conversation. See the other person. Write a real letter. It feels good.
33
Looking forward to your op-ed piece discussing the op-ed piece you write about this one.
12
And there are many ways to "get" each other. A challenge that makes life so interesting is having two or more people together with different expectations of how to "get" each other at first awkwardly, but then gradually, successfully begin to see what is going on and begin to "get" each other -- the only hope for different people learning to be part of a community.
12
I like your observations. It makes me sad for people who have never known life without being constantly connected, and it makes me more aware of how technology has diminished my own conversational life. That can change with awareness. Thank you.
45
We have a couple of generations who must at all times be entertained. They have zero understanding about how sharing of oneself, ones experiences and ideas is the foundation of a relationship.
I recently had friends of 44 years stay as my houseguest for the weekend. We share so much history we never run out of things about which to talk. Instead, we run out of time. We would not have such a relationship if we'd stopped to watch a YouTube video if we lost interest. But how can one even lose interest in someone about whom one cares!
My mother used to tell me that to be bored one had to be boring. Very true.
I recently had friends of 44 years stay as my houseguest for the weekend. We share so much history we never run out of things about which to talk. Instead, we run out of time. We would not have such a relationship if we'd stopped to watch a YouTube video if we lost interest. But how can one even lose interest in someone about whom one cares!
My mother used to tell me that to be bored one had to be boring. Very true.
113
One area the author does not explore is the use of devices (smartphones, pads, etc.) as a means of avoiding conversation because they are too shy or insecure. I find this particularly true of geeks who were technologically smart (brilliant even) but lack social skills.
They use the device as a shield in a social setting perhaps not realing the message they are broadcasting. It is extraordinarily rude.
What to do? Call them out on it? Doesn't work; they just get defensive. Try to draw them out from behind their plastic gadgets? All you get are grunts. Emulate their behavior? They don't even notice.
I am a true believer in facetime and conversation is one of the great joys in my life. But what do you do when you are sitting in the living room with a guest and they hide behind their device?
Good area for future exploration, I'm thinking.
They use the device as a shield in a social setting perhaps not realing the message they are broadcasting. It is extraordinarily rude.
What to do? Call them out on it? Doesn't work; they just get defensive. Try to draw them out from behind their plastic gadgets? All you get are grunts. Emulate their behavior? They don't even notice.
I am a true believer in facetime and conversation is one of the great joys in my life. But what do you do when you are sitting in the living room with a guest and they hide behind their device?
Good area for future exploration, I'm thinking.
58
I agree. This is a good area of exploration for both older folks (like me) and younger ones or tech-savvy ones more comfortable with devices. When I am with someone who is visiting and their focus turns to a device, I often just get genuinely curious about what they are attending to -- by asking a simple question or by using body language to let them know I am curious. Sometimes this has little effect, in which case, when I can, I sit in attentive silence and wait, relax. Usually they "come back" to the here and now. And sometimes my curiosity has led to me learning interesting things, either about the person or about what he/she is attending to. I try to stay open to that ....
It drives me crazy that so many people think about conversation in terms of what they are going to say. A lot of awkwardness in conversation can be gotten past just by letting your default position be to ask a question, listen to the answer and ask a followup question based on whatever interested you about what the other person said. If you're lucky, the other person will do the same, and you can have a real, meaningful exchange, even if the content of it isn't Nobel Prize winning. The young folk are right - conversations ARE mostly boring now, and a huge part of that is that few people (among Americans anyway) know how to have one. There's nothing worse than being in a group of people making a series of deadening, disconnected pronouncements, whether or not a phone is in the mix. Having said that, though, the phone is a huge problem, and I think makes its adherents fully capable of ignoring or ruining even a really good conversation. There is something wrong with the fact that in all areas of life, we now feel we must always have The Best. It leaves no room for something that doesn't immediately look like The Best to evolve.
Thank you for both of these articles! Dismaying, insightful and thought provoking!
Thank you for both of these articles! Dismaying, insightful and thought provoking!
99
That is really well said by you, the art of conversation is dramatically on the decline, I have noticed. People are so consumed about thinking what they are going to say, and just waiting for their turn to talk, instead of LISTENING and caring and trying to have a meaningful exchange. I think you hit it on the head there ! and when you find two people capable of doing this, its great. I used to find 20 yrs ago there was much much more meaningful conversations. there are less now..
9
Men often have their conversations while doing something else. It’s like a fishing trip where of ten men on a boat, only two or three are actively trying to catch something, but no one would say that he was there for the camaraderie, so next time, let’s rent a hall.
13
It seems that some people have social skills issues that they then normalize by saying device-based communication is "better." Of course there is a place for devices, and for those that think other people are boring, etc. fine. But I don;t think most people think this, or perhaps they intentionally seeking out interesting friends (using social skills).
I agree with the concern that devices minimize the development of needed social skills is (some) young people at the age when they should be developed. It's not either-or.
I agree with the concern that devices minimize the development of needed social skills is (some) young people at the age when they should be developed. It's not either-or.
16