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The Power of Talk in a Digital Age
Penguin Press
October 2015
On Sale: October 6, 2015
436 pages
ISBN: 1594205558
EAN: 9781594205552
Kindle: B00SI0B6PC
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction | Self-Help
Renowned media scholar Sherry Turkle investigates how a
flight from conversation undermines our relationships,
creativity, and productivity—and why reclaiming
face-to-face conversation can help us regain lost ground. We live in a technological universe in which we are always
communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for
mere connection. Preeminent author and researcher Sherry Turkle has been
studying digital culture for over thirty years. Long an
enthusiast for its possibilities, here she investigates a
troubling consequence: at work, at home, in politics, and in
love, we find ways around conversation, tempted by the
possibilities of a text or an email in which we don’t have
to look, listen, or reveal ourselves. We develop a taste for what mere connection offers. The
dinner table falls silent as children compete with phones
for their parents’ attention. Friends learn strategies to
keep conversations going when only a few people are looking
up from their phones. At work, we retreat to our screens
although it is conversation at the water cooler that
increases not only productivity but commitment to work.
Online, we only want to share opinions that our followers
will agree with – a politics that shies away from the real
conflicts and solutions of the public square. The case for conversation begins with the necessary
conversations of solitude and self-reflection. They are
endangered: these days, always connected, we see loneliness
as a problem that technology should solve. Afraid of being
alone, we rely on other people to give us a sense of
ourselves, and our capacity for empathy and relationship
suffers. We see the costs of the flight from conversation
everywhere: conversation is the cornerstone for democracy
and in business it is good for the bottom line. In the
private sphere, it builds empathy, friendship, love,
learning, and productivity. But there is good news: we are resilient. Conversation cures. Based on five years of research and interviews in homes,
schools, and the workplace, Turkle argues that we have come
to a better understanding of where our technology can and
cannot take us and that the time is right to reclaim
conversation. The most human—and humanizing—thing that we do. The virtues of person-to-person conversation are timeless,
and our most basic technology, talk, responds to our modern
challenges. We have everything we need to start, we have
each other.
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