Cal Newport’s Quote of Professor Sherry Turkle on Reclaiming Conversation:
“Face-to-face conversation is the most human–and humanizing–thing we do. Fully present to one another, we learn to listen. It’s where we develop the capacity for empathy. It’s where we experience the joy of being heard, of being understood.”
Stephen Colbert’s question to Turkle: “Don’t all these little tweets, these little sips of online connection, add up to one big gulp of real conversation?” Turkle was clear in her answer: No, they do not. As she expands. “Face-to-face conversation unfolds slowly. It teaches patience. We attend to tone and nuance.”
“We use conversations we have with each other, to learn how to have conversations with ourselves. So a flight from conversation can really matter because it can compromise our capacity for self-reflection.”
Turkle on the valued views of solitude:
“If we don’t teach our children how to be alone, they’re going to be more lonely.”
Here’s a 14 year old TED talk that sounds more relevant today than it perhaps did back then when we were all oblivious to the harms of digital addictions. Most especially now with the rise of AI companions:
https://youtu.be/t7Xr3AsBEK4?si=3TrrDNJadbepfCb5