The Art of Manliness - #155： Reclaiming Conversation

00:00:00.000 we're at mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so

00:00:18.480 more and more today we are communicating with the people in our lives via screens might be your

00:00:23.760 desktop with email or instant message or it might be on your smartphone with text messaging or

00:00:28.440 twitter or facebook and while there have been some great benefits of this advance in communication

00:00:33.820 technology efficient etc etc there are some drawbacks that have come with the decline in

00:00:39.880 face-to-face conversation my guest today on the podcast has written a book making the case what

00:00:45.840 we're missing out by not engaging face-to-face talk and open into conversation her name is sherry

00:00:50.880 turkle she's a professor of the social studies of science and technology at mit in massachusetts

00:00:56.100 and her latest book is reclaiming conversation the power of talk in a digital age and today on

00:01:01.160 the podcast we discuss what we miss out whenever we don't engage in face-to-face conversation and

00:01:07.020 what we can do to reclaim conversation in our own lives with the people around us great podcast with

00:01:13.840 a lot of great tips that you can actually implement today in your life to bring back open into

00:01:19.740 conversation so without further ado sherry turkle reclaiming conversation

00:01:23.820 all right sherry turkle welcome to the show my pleasure uh so your latest book is reclaiming

00:01:37.860 conversation um and you've written about how technology and communication and humanity uh intersects

00:01:45.700 uh because you're a professor of social sciences and technology at mit um and i'm curious you know

00:01:52.680 you've you've warned about the ill effects that technology can have in our lives in your work

00:01:56.880 um have you always had a wary eye towards technology or was there a time in your career where

00:02:03.280 like most people thought that things like the internet texting email could improve communication

00:02:09.980 make society better well i still think that the that the internet and um can make society better

00:02:18.340 and i think it does in many ways make society better um but i um i think that we have to

00:02:25.500 use it in ways that um will make sure that happens and just you know be more discriminating because i

00:02:34.060 think we use it in some ways they're making our our lot worse but there was a time when i you know

00:02:41.220 was less aware i think of the as we all were of what the uh problematic uh the problematic issues were

00:02:49.800 so i think i was more sort of generally enthusiastic um and that was really when you know when things

00:02:56.600 began you know i would say up to the mid 90s when the the part of the internet i focused on was how

00:03:03.160 it allowed us to play with issues of identity and that was very exciting and um i still i still think

00:03:11.060 that that's a very um thrilling part of the internet uh we've seen the dark side of that

00:03:16.940 we've seen that people when they're anonymous online can become very cruel um but it certainly

00:03:23.800 is the case you know that anonymity is not just uh doesn't just allow you to play with identity it

00:03:29.640 allows you to feel no accountability and that's you know that's something that we've all learned

00:03:35.940 again with practice you know in this medium but um i would say that through the 90s i was i was more

00:03:42.900 an enthusiast uh than a critic and um then in terms of my own biography my own intellectual biography i met

00:03:51.040 two technologies that that sort of took me aback and made me um you know more critical and those were

00:03:59.280 sociable robotics robots that pretend to have empathy robots that say they love you care

00:04:05.920 about you um that pretend they have a relationship with you i think this has some very toxic effects

00:04:14.880 and um and also um i began to see the downside of what i call always on always on you technology

00:04:25.360 you know something like our phones where because they're always on us always on our bodies we tend

00:04:32.920 to turn away from the people we're with uh and turn towards our phones and so i became more focused

00:04:40.960 on looking at these two technologies and you know kind of taking the measure of the problems that they

00:04:47.060 are causing us and what led you to conversation so i think all of us intuitively understand that

00:04:52.720 we're not very good at having conversations but what led you down this path to look at how technology

00:04:58.960 has affected the way we interact face to face and having conversations

00:05:03.720 well the what sociable robotics and always on technology have in common is that they take us away

00:05:17.340 from conversations that count if you give your child a hello barbie which is a robot doll that says

00:05:27.320 hello i love you talk to me about your sister i have a sister i'm jealous of my sister do you have

00:05:33.940 you know pretend to want to have a conversation with you about your sister you're not talking to your

00:05:40.280 child about her feelings and therefore cutting off a conversation that might lead to really the

00:05:51.280 develop of empathy the development development of relationship in a way that talking to a robot doll

00:05:57.740 is never going to do and similarly if you put a phone down on a table between two people who are having a

00:06:06.780 meal research shows that the empathy between those two people literally the connection they feel toward

00:06:15.660 each other will go way down and the things they will talk about will become more trivial because it sort of

00:06:23.720 makes sense we we don't want to share um much of ourselves if we feel we're uh going to be interrupted

00:06:32.200 so not only do we talk about things that are more trivial but we also um but we also uh feel less

00:06:40.680 connection with the people we're with and neither of these things are good neither of these things are good

00:06:47.200 i guess you also talked about how um there's research showing out showing now that young people

00:06:52.520 are becoming less and less empathetic and that might be because of smartphones and internet communication

00:06:59.260 yes there's a 40 percent decline in the um in every way we know how to um judge empathy

00:07:08.560 among college students in the past 20 years with the greatest decline being in the past 10 years

00:07:14.680 and we have every reason to think that's because of um smartphones but you know it it makes sense

00:07:22.140 because we're you know empathy is born in the conversations in the conversations where you

00:07:29.120 look somebody in the eye and you you know you you sense their body you sense their um

00:07:36.640 you know you sense their their their pauses their stops their starts i mean you're really

00:07:43.780 you know you're really paying attention uh to them and you know that's not going to happen

00:07:50.320 if you interrupt that conversation to go to your phone and it turns out that 89 percent of americans

00:07:58.440 say in in the most recent study that um in in their last conversation they they took out a phone

00:08:05.220 i mean they literally say you know my last social interaction i took out a phone and 82 percent say

00:08:11.220 that it deteriorated the conversation so this is something that we we know we know that we're doing

00:08:18.780 to each other we know is not good for it's not it's not good for our conversations but we're doing it

00:08:26.300 anyway but we don't have to in other words i'm very optimistic because it turns out that in only um five days

00:08:34.560 at a summer camp um without phones those empathy numbers come right back up um and uh we can reclaim

00:08:45.160 conversation and reclaim empathy and reclaim the kind of the kinds of relationships that that we

00:08:52.260 deserve to have with each other so it sounds like empathy is a lot like a muscle right you use it or lose

00:08:57.000 absolutely absolutely empathy is what we're pre-wired for in other words the muscle is there

00:09:04.120 you know to be used it's it's a design to grow but if you don't use it you you won't have it um

00:09:13.520 it's like an apology when you apologize to someone um you know so much work is done so much work is done

00:09:22.660 you get to say um i'm sorry you get to see um uh you get to see the other person feeling sad and hurt

00:09:38.480 but they get to see you being sorry then they feel compassionate and then you see that there's an

00:09:45.700 opening because they feel compassionate so that you can use that opening to to make a space for

00:09:53.560 something new to happen it's really fantastic i mean it's really fantastic um and um uh it's it's

00:10:06.140 really uh uh fantastic all of the um uh all the things that can happen in in an apology um but that

00:10:18.220 can't happen online right or a text message no um it can't it can't yeah unfortunately it can't

00:10:28.060 but yeah i think you know there's i'm sure there's people out there and you probably heard these

00:10:33.120 counter-arguments that saying oh well you know we're over romanticizing conversation you know we

00:10:38.340 forget about the awkward silences and the angry outburst and the tediousness of you know asking

00:10:44.560 well what do you think of the weather today you know small talk you know and technology eliminates

00:10:49.480 that right with apps like tinder uh people no longer have to figure out uh can i is this person

00:10:56.520 is can i make the transition from just being friends to your romance because everyone on tinder is

00:11:01.360 already there for romance you don't have to worry about small talk you've got to swipe uh text

00:11:05.800 messaging eliminates uh you can answer when you're ready to answer but well but see all of this i mean

00:11:13.200 my you know i want to be in conversation um i want to be in conversation with these people

00:11:21.880 because they have something wrong and it reminds me of my students who don't want to come to office

00:11:29.700 hours but who want to send me an email asking me the perfect question so i can send them the perfect

00:11:35.760 answer back they're they're turning what should be a rich conversation into a transaction they're

00:11:43.600 forgetting that that what's supposed to happen between a professor and a student is is not that

00:11:54.380 they're going to ask me the perfect question i'm going to give them the perfect answer but that um

00:12:02.440 but then on the contrary they're going to give me the imperfect

00:12:07.940 idea and i'm going to say hey um that's not a great idea but i'm going to stick with you and talk

00:12:21.540 with you and we're going to have a relationship and we're going to make this better yeah so it seems

00:12:27.840 like we and that's what that's what they're missing that's what they're missing is they're missing that

00:12:34.820 um that these conversations that they're calling small talk um you know um they're these are the

00:12:47.520 what these these are the non-transactional conversations where you build a relationship get to know about

00:12:55.960 another person um uh you know get to understand how somebody else thinks um that's the business

00:13:08.280 of conversation it's not it's not it's not an algorithm and i i think that i'm arguing for

00:13:18.860 um you know the work that conversation can do that is not the work of an algorithm

00:13:26.220 and you know tinder is an algorithm yeah um you know and and i'm not saying that it doesn't get two

00:13:34.020 people together to meet but once you meet um you better be ready to talk if you want to have a

00:13:42.920 um you know a conversation i mean it seems like um the the friction that happens in conversation

00:13:52.640 opens up i guess spontaneity that's something i feel all of us want control over everything

00:13:58.240 aspects of our life and with conversations sometimes you can't control that

00:14:01.880 um and it feels scary uh but at the same time it opens up new opportunities because you might go

00:14:07.380 somewhere you didn't think you were going to go before yeah i think that a lot of um a lot of what

00:14:16.080 people are afraid now about is spontaneity i mean i talked to one young man about conversation and why

00:14:23.060 he would do anything to sort of avoid it and he said i said what's wrong with conversation he said

00:14:28.780 conversation i'll tell you what's wrong with conversation it takes place in real time

00:14:35.120 and i can't you can't control what you're going to say it takes place in real time and you can't

00:14:43.100 control what you're going to say um uh and he was so right and yet that's not a bad thing that's a good

00:14:53.000 thing and yet he was seeing that as a bad thing and i think that our phones make us i sometimes

00:15:01.200 say they make us three gifts as though they were gifts from genies you know kind of powerful

00:15:07.500 benevolent genie but who sort of didn't understand much about people and what they really need

00:15:12.900 which is that you know we we never have to be alone we can put our attention wherever we want

00:15:17.340 it to be we never have to be bored uh you know and and and we never really have to deal with

00:15:24.160 our vulnerability and actually those things even though they feel so seductive they're really not

00:15:32.640 that great for us to live like that and i think that's kind of the challenge is that we're offered

00:15:38.860 possibilities that really aren't that great for us and that's what we're struggling with now it seems

00:15:45.340 uh i think you made this analogy in your book too too is it's sort of like uh nutrition uh was maybe

00:15:51.480 10 years ago like we all love fast food it's delicious because it has that fat and we're primed

00:15:57.620 evolutionary you know because of evolution to seek that out but we have an overabundance of it now and

00:16:02.780 consequently we we've gotten obese because of it as a society is it the same thing with information

00:16:07.540 like we we feel drawn to having these sort of sips of conversation via text and email

00:16:13.720 um but in the end it's not very good for us yes and also the analogy to fast food actually gives me

00:16:23.920 um is interesting because it also gives me a little hope paradoxically because um you know i was raised

00:16:31.340 by a mother who thought that you know giving the best nutrition to her precious little sherry was you

00:16:37.640 you know white bread and i remember it had these balloons on it and each balloon stood for a

00:16:43.900 different vitamin that was injected into this somehow and it had um i had like soup that mostly tasted of

00:16:54.020 sugar and salt those were its main flavor i'd you know it had some tomato flavoring i think but i think

00:17:01.180 it was mostly sugar and salt and then i had um a fruit in a sort of base of sugary syrup i mean i i

00:17:09.880 really this was if i i had a a daughter and if i had fed her these foods i i would have you know the

00:17:17.240 only excuse would have been that i was doing like a madman retrospective or something i mean you know

00:17:21.960 i would have been like considered an abusive mother so gradually you know we you know that was industry

00:17:28.780 telling americans you know what it wanted us to eat to to feed a kind of new industrial model of

00:17:36.620 of what of what have how they were stocking um supermarket shelves um and americans you know in

00:17:46.360 this culture gradually and it's not completely it hasn't completely changed yet but gradually people

00:17:52.200 said you know what i don't think so i actually don't think so i don't think i want to eat like this

00:17:57.040 this really doesn't feel um this doesn't feel so good i don't um this isn't feeling good to me

00:18:04.880 um and and gradually people change their food habits so um i i think that we are at a moment

00:18:17.020 when we are actually ready to change our um our phone habits because so many people that i

00:18:29.420 interviewed were not happy campers you know it's not as though you know people criticize my work and

00:18:35.840 say oh my gosh doesn't appreciate how much we know from the internet i really do and i want to continue

00:18:41.700 using all that great stuff that it gives us but we use it in some ways that really are making people

00:18:48.660 quite um unhappy with their lives like i i'm thinking of this one father who i interviewed who

00:18:56.100 who um who talked about giving his older daughter a bath when she was a younger girl you know when she

00:19:03.880 was a toddler now she's 11 and now he has a two-year-old and he doesn't when he gives her a bath he just

00:19:09.880 leaves her in the bathtub and he sits on the toilet bowl with the seat down he does his mail on his

00:19:14.960 iphone he doesn't even talk to her and he says this is terrible those conversations i used to have

00:19:21.200 with my older daughter those were the best that was incredible that was the most you know those were

00:19:26.260 the most that was the best and it wasn't just that he liked them but i mean as a psychologist i know

00:19:31.500 that he was that's where you teach empathy you know that's how it's done that's how you teach

00:19:38.040 you know a kind of continuity of of parental care and how to have a conversation and not to be afraid

00:19:45.980 of a spontaneous conversation intimacy that's where all that work is done and and now he just

00:19:53.620 he's miserable and his daughter isn't getting what she needs to get so um uh you know he's not happy

00:20:03.740 and um and so i think that people are really ready for a change i mean that's that's the bottom line

00:20:12.820 yeah you know and and i think that even younger people you know people who are particularly like

00:20:19.040 14 13 14 15 year olds whose parents you know were texting at breakfast and dinner whose whose dads never

00:20:27.220 took them for a walk to the corner store without bringing their phones you know these are kids who

00:20:32.520 are ready for a change these are kids who are ready for a change yeah i thought that was interesting

00:20:37.980 the interviews you did with the younger people like they were the ones who were instigating like 0.96

00:20:41.800 they're telling their parents like get off your phone you know we're at dinner yes that was so

00:20:46.220 bizarre you usually think it's the other way around no i you know i think that that's a misperception

00:20:50.640 because you know we think so many people say to me well how do they know to do that

00:20:54.460 because they never knew anything different and this this is on this model that somehow

00:20:59.840 you know young people need to be taught that uh it would be a good thing for their parents to talk

00:21:08.620 to them so that's like the model that they've never had it so how are they going to know

00:21:13.860 that it would be a good thing for their parents to talk to them and i can see why you know we get into

00:21:19.620 that um way of thinking it's like you know it should be a cognitive learning that your parents

00:21:26.680 should talk to you but it turns out that kids really just want their parents attention and and they

00:21:34.740 seem to know and crave it um without no in a culture where they don't have it so i can just report that

00:21:45.540 from the front lines that that this that this desire seems to pop up um even without um even when

00:21:55.600 parents don't give it uh children seem to want it or on the playground you know um parents sit there

00:22:02.800 with what one of my big advice points to parents is that if you cannot if you simply cannot um spend

00:22:10.300 you know spend three hours on the playground with your kid paying attention to them because you have

00:22:16.780 too much to work to do on your phone don't go to the playground for three hours you know stay home

00:22:22.760 that's okay and go go to the playground for um a half hour but what's terrible i mean what's awful

00:22:34.580 is is is parents who are um who are um who are um who are who are who are who are going to the

00:22:45.560 playground and with their children sort of begging them to to pay attention to them and these kids are

00:22:53.540 like being ignored so stay home do your work and keep your phone at home we go to the playground so

00:23:02.340 when you're there you can pay attention to your kid it's the same thing at you know with at school

00:23:07.180 games you see you see the parents who have gone to the school game you know or they've gone to the

00:23:13.300 school game and um but they go to a school game and then at the game they're they're texting um

00:23:21.240 and it's it's bad yeah uh they're there but they're not there they're there but they're not there

00:23:28.440 and kids realize it and they're quite you know they're quite upset yeah well i think most people

00:23:35.560 have a tendency to think of conversation as part of you know our personal lives and that yeah we

00:23:40.560 should make more take more measures to ensure that we have more of these face-to-face moments with our

00:23:45.780 family and our friends but you make this interesting case um in your book that we need to do this in

00:23:51.520 business as well um why how how is it that face-to-face conversations can improve business

00:23:59.140 productivity and profitability because most people think well you know this sort of the cooler talk

00:24:03.240 and things like that that's just a waste of time it should be on the computers getting stuff done

00:24:07.220 but how can these face-to-face spontaneous conversations at the office help us be do better

00:24:12.740 work well the it's great you ask that because dramatically dramatic new research has shown

00:24:21.860 that face-to-face conversation is good for the bottom line it increases productivity it increases

00:24:30.080 creativity and collaboration and it uh it companies that make room for it make more money

00:24:38.880 so the work of ben veber who's a colleague of mine he he began at mit and now he has his own

00:24:45.880 company but he what he did was he actually put badges i mean sort of electronic interactive highly

00:24:52.340 interactive badges on people sensing badges that sensed you know if they were having conversation

00:24:58.560 what kind of conversation who they were having conversation with um and um and he found that that

00:25:05.520 that those workers who talked more to their co-workers um were more productive groups of workers who

00:25:13.100 talked together were more productive giving workers a coffee break at the same time increases the

00:25:18.880 productivity of that whole group um and one of the least productive things you can do it turns out

00:25:26.040 is the thing that makes you feel more productive which is going into your office putting on your

00:25:32.700 headphones or going into your cubicle putting on your headphones um laying out your one or two

00:25:39.040 phones um and you know opening up your screen with all its windows and you know starting in on those emails

00:25:46.980 uh one um one lawyer um who i spoke to called that the pilot in the cockpit you know so the lawyers who do

00:25:56.140 that are the pilots in the cockpit they're not working with their colleagues they're not they're not

00:26:02.320 really getting done what needs to get done in the firm which is working together um talking to clients

00:26:10.800 they these people tend to avoid client meetings and prefer to send emails and that is not how

00:26:18.440 relationships form it's not how really the work of the firm gets done they don't go to the they don't

00:26:25.560 go to the uh lunchroom to talk to their colleagues they they stay in their office they don't go to

00:26:32.880 meetings with senior lawyers you know to to listen to conference calls to see how senior lawyers conduct

00:26:39.940 negotiations they they listen to those calls on speaker from their office so that they can multitask

00:26:48.840 and continue to work on their email it's a very common pattern and we we think that we're being

00:26:55.380 smart when we do that and actually we are taking ourselves out of the mainstream of what will make us

00:27:03.160 successful which is relationships knowing how to talk to people knowing how to close a deal

00:27:11.260 knowing how to be sensitive to other people and and and understand them um it reduces that spontaneity

00:27:18.900 again right again again and and and this you know the most successful people are not people who are

00:27:26.580 dedicated to emptying out their inbox they don't care about their inbox they care about what they're

00:27:32.860 doing proactively what they're writing what they're thinking and the transactional and and you know

00:27:41.240 and sort of um responsive reactive things that they can do with their inbox um you know once a day

00:27:51.860 once every two a days once a week you know they'll put in some time they're not irresponsible but but

00:27:59.160 you know my favorite tip to um to people who want to be really productive at work is to send out

00:28:07.640 messages that say i'm thinking and see watch those messages watch people go crazy and watch those

00:28:15.560 messages go viral now it depends of course at what level you are in an organization i mean you know you

00:28:21.200 can't you can't make this conversation revolution if you're just starting out you have to begin to

00:28:26.980 enlist um other people to argue with you that you will be more creative and you know you have to

00:28:34.480 work in a firm where you can work on changing the culture of the firm but i think that there's more

00:28:40.840 uh support for this than than than many people think because firms are realizing i mean i went to one firm

00:28:49.260 where you know that had studied you know the right size of the table in the cafeteria so that people

00:28:56.440 would um you know would sit together and talk you know the right how long a wait there should be on

00:29:04.840 the um on the line you know in the cafeteria so that people would chat but wouldn't feel that the

00:29:11.380 line was too long you know everything for conversation in other words they had read

00:29:16.420 ben veber's research they knew um how important conversation was and yet they also demanded

00:29:25.220 that people that the highest value really was being always on the company messaging system

00:29:32.920 and if you didn't respond to a message within i don't know 15 20 minutes a half hour somehow you

00:29:39.280 weren't showing devotion and you can't have it both ways and that company you know is starting to

00:29:46.560 you know there's a lot of pressure there to to turn things around and to you know if they're going to

00:29:55.080 talk the talk they have to walk the walk you you know conversation really has to be a way of life

00:30:01.000 within the culture of the company it can't be slogans or cappuccino machines or micro kitchens it

00:30:08.520 really has to be how you run your business yeah i thought it was interesting too how uh ceos are

00:30:13.600 starting to implement basically like social skills classes for their newer uh and newer recruits

00:30:19.800 because these young people coming out of college they just they have no they want to do

00:30:22.940 everything by email or text messaging yes that is very common yeah it's very common to have um

00:30:30.900 to have ceos saying you know i mean several ceos that said that you know they spend what they consider

00:30:39.120 an unconscionable amount of time on um social i mean they don't even know how to put it kind of social

00:30:47.260 uh social uh social skills training uh you know just kind of getting people um into uh um you know

00:31:01.020 getting people to um be together and um um you know hang out with each other and apologize to each other

00:31:12.760 instead of sending each other crazy emails yeah constantly yeah i've had those what they were

00:31:19.520 doing yeah i've had those exchanges i mean i work from home um and so a lot of people i work with are

00:31:24.200 it's remote and i guess that's another problem right uh more and more companies have uh decided to do this

00:31:30.200 whole remote working things it makes it more productive it saves money uh but in the process like

00:31:34.800 it sucks up my time i've had email exchanges like a chain of emails i was 60 emails back and forth

00:31:40.000 when like a simple phone call could have gotten the problem solved in five minutes but like people

00:31:46.240 no one ever thinks oh let's just get on the phone it's just let's just keep doing email because this

00:31:50.220 is comfortable yes um i thought this interesting so you make this point that besides making us less

00:31:56.860 empathetic our technology and i'm not just talking about smartphones i'm talking about the services that

00:32:01.420 we use to communicate so facebook instagram all that snapchat um it changes the way we present

00:32:09.900 ourselves to the world um we sort of self-censor and but why is that and some people say why is that

00:32:17.140 so bad i mean shouldn't we you know self-reflect before we self-reveal um things to to other people

00:32:23.700 or but but why is that bad if it is bad well you know everything in its place i mean you know i think

00:32:30.180 this is an example where you want to you want to sort of step back and take a deep breath and say

00:32:36.820 it's a matter of degree um i'm presenting myself here to lots of people um there's a degree of natural

00:32:47.760 editing um so it's natural that i self-reflect before i self-reveal too much and that's good

00:32:59.260 um if i'm on facebook and i'm presenting myself to a public it's natural and good that i self-reflect

00:33:18.700 before i self-reveal the problem is that we've gotten into thinking and people do that they present

00:33:28.120 their you know the best meal you know the best meal they don't they don't you know they have

00:33:34.080 lunch at mcdonald's with a you know with a with a greasy with with really greasy fries it looks

00:33:42.040 great on instagram yeah i mean you know the whole thing and then but then for dinner they go to you

00:33:47.080 know something really elegant and they're taking pictures that elegant thing and you know they

00:33:51.520 they're at some sort of you know hotel hotel nothing but then you know when when they do

00:33:59.660 something special all of a sudden they're at this you know fancy hotel i mean in other words you you

00:34:04.280 present a sort of souped up version of your life you know part of my author tour is very elegant

00:34:10.520 and really nice and then i mean really part of it is like you know really terrible

00:34:17.620 and you know if i was if i was on facebook you know telling my followers about my tour i i you know

00:34:27.120 i don't think it's a two o'clock in the morning kind of dragging myself through through places they're

00:34:34.200 kind of grungy that i you know would really feature i want to look glamorous i wish i would do the one

00:34:39.280 where you know the hairdresser and the makeup artist are leaving a hotel you know and i'm about

00:34:45.900 to be interviewed by you know somebody awesome you know that's that's more what i would post but we

00:34:51.460 all do this and that's fine that's fine if we remember that facebook is a public place where we're

00:35:00.020 presenting a public self where we want to be or you know a kind of um polished up version of us

00:35:07.480 um that's not but that's not how we start to talk about it we start to talk about it like this is

00:35:18.180 where we have our friends this is the place for our social life we're gonna you know this is this is

00:35:25.080 our this is where i talk to my besties um and we start to look at that profile as though it really

00:35:31.900 matters that this is somehow where significant social encounters are happening not your pr campaign

00:35:40.820 in other words we're chatting as part of my you know publicity from my book and trying to get i

00:35:48.080 really believe in this conversation i want to start a movement for conversation i think that

00:35:52.880 childhood and work and medicine and law i mean politics need conversation i mean i'm gonna i'm

00:35:59.980 not care you know yeah so naturally i'm gonna you know edit but when we do it when we when we're

00:36:08.240 presenting these kind of you know edited selves when we when we think we're in our most intimate

00:36:14.500 relationships and we start to talk about facebook as as part of our intimate life that is when it

00:36:23.080 becomes a problem if people talked about facebook as part of their personal publicity campaign

00:36:28.540 it would be yeah that's right but they don't they talk about it as where they see their identity

00:36:35.140 and what i've found is that people look at facebook and they see this reflection of themselves that they

00:36:40.360 can barely recognize and they begin to feel this fear of missing this this way that you call it fear

00:36:48.720 of missing out yeah and they begin to feel it about their own lives like hold on who is this person who

00:36:55.200 has this glamorous life you know is that me is that me i don't think so but i i put it you know

00:37:01.940 you become jealous of yourself and that's not a good alienated from your own experience and that's not

00:37:08.680 good yeah that's not good that's really a problem and you make a bigger case though with this self

00:37:13.520 editing thing that it in in the end can affect democracy in a lot of ways because people are because

00:37:20.140 they're constantly we're aware that anything we could say at any moment or do is being not only

00:37:26.200 surveyed you know being um watched by the government or corporations but it's being watched by others

00:37:30.960 and they're you say there's a tendency for people to self-edit maybe a controversial idea because they

00:37:37.320 don't want to uh suffer the consequences that could come from that idea whether it's their job or their

00:37:43.200 social life or whatever absolutely this is one of the most i think this is one of the most important

00:37:50.840 um really one of the most important um parts of my book which is where i discuss um the um

00:38:07.340 how should i say the the the the implications of the way we're living now for

00:38:16.060 for democracy and the question that we're not asking ourselves enough of not only can there be

00:38:26.240 intimacy without privacy but can there be democracy without privacy and i i talk about a young woman

00:38:32.960 who who says to me during a time of tremendous political unrest in the united states i mean

00:38:39.960 it was a a moment where a lot of things were happening politically that really were there was a lot to

00:38:46.520 talk about and she said to me and this is a woman who had just graduated from an ivy league university 1.00

00:38:51.980 a brilliant young woman about to go into financial services on top of her game i mean so smart she 0.99

00:38:58.400 majored in economics and she so smart um and she said i'm glad i don't have anything controversial to

00:39:05.700 say i'm glad i don't have anything controversial to say because i'd have to say it online because

00:39:11.840 that's the only place to talk and it would be public and i that wouldn't be good in other words she is 0.99

00:39:19.460 she's making sure that she doesn't have anything controversial to say she's making sure she doesn't have

00:39:26.860 anything controversial to say because saying something controversial would be inconvenient

00:39:32.440 and and that's how we're living and and and um and not only that but there are these there are very

00:39:42.340 interesting studies that show that we post i mean getting back to the facebook effect i mean

00:39:46.820 online we post what our follow what we think our followers will like and that leads us to

00:39:54.420 what's called the spiral of silence where we're posting more and more of what we think other

00:40:01.160 people will like so we're hearing more and more of what people think we'll like and we're we're

00:40:08.980 saying more and more of what people we think people will like i mean this is not this is not good

00:40:15.280 yeah so michelle foucault got it right that uh yeah we would uh self-edit ourselves that's that's how 0.98

00:40:21.480 tyranny would come yeah yeah but this is a new kind of so this is a new kind of that i mean this

00:40:27.540 is this is a it's it's kind of taking it to a higher power in a way you really are yeah well let's

00:40:34.800 let's talk about sort of brass tacks about how you reclaim conversation and you you leave some great

00:40:41.000 tips but i thought it was really interesting the start of your book you you make the case that one

00:40:44.840 of the first things you have to do to reclaim conversation is to reclaim solitude i thought that was

00:40:50.300 interesting because you know there's all these research i think people confuse solitude with

00:40:55.020 loneliness your previous book was called together alone or alone together you know we're all feeling

00:41:00.020 more and more lonely so why would solitude be the first thing we need to do to reclaim conversation

00:41:06.620 well solitude is not loneliness solitude is is kind of the opposite of loneliness solitude is when

00:41:18.460 you are content with yourself and solitude is not that easy to achieve i mean you achieve solitude

00:41:27.540 actually by being in conversation when you're young i mean ideally when you're young with someone who

00:41:35.420 leaves you a little space for your own thoughts and so gradually you become more at peace with being

00:41:42.720 with your own thoughts and you know you can think back to a grandfather who took you on walks and who

00:41:51.200 just gradually you know held your hand but just then didn't chat with you much and you each were in your

00:41:57.880 own mind but he was there um my grandmother used to take me for walks in prospect park and we chatted a

00:42:09.120 little but basically we we looked at the pigeons fed the pigeons i mean she taught me a kind of

00:42:15.780 contentment in my own mind um that's solitude being comfortable with your own inner dialogue now

00:42:25.200 that's not loneliness and it's interesting that we learn solitude when we're you know by by first being

00:42:34.120 with someone else and comfortable with our own self when we're with someone else but let me get to

00:42:40.880 your question having defined solitude of what it means of why it is that solitude is the pathway to

00:42:49.120 conversation because and and relationship because if you're content with who you are

00:42:57.500 you can listen to another person and really hear what they have to say instead of needing to project

00:43:09.000 you what you need to hear onto that conversation with them so we all shun people and actually they're

00:43:23.000 technically they're called narcissistic personality disorder people but we don't need to have that

00:43:27.620 you know name for them but we technically want to stay away from people we instinctively want to stay

00:43:34.760 away from people who don't know who they are and who want us to somehow tell them who they are

00:43:40.420 um and we're comfortable with people who know who they are and who can listen to us

00:43:48.800 and be in relationship with us because they let us be who we are and that's what you want to achieve

00:43:55.560 to be in relationship and that's what you're looking for in conversation and so um uh

00:44:06.940 you're the pathway toward relationship passes through a capacity for solitude

00:44:17.020 and that's why i get into i don't think fights but there's a misunderstanding of my work

00:44:25.440 uh and not just my work but at this very important point by people who say okay let's give turkle this

00:44:33.260 that it's good to um it's good to be um uh maybe it's not good to take out your phone when you're with

00:44:42.720 another person let's grant her that but what's the trouble with taking out my phone if i'm alone

00:44:48.180 i mean what does that hurt why would that bother sherry turkle you know what what what what does she 1.00

00:44:56.380 what's her problem with that and the reason that it's a problem is because if you don't develop 0.67

00:45:05.840 the capacity if you are always looking to be stimulated and can't be alone you will always be

00:45:14.080 looking for somebody else to tell you who you are to stimulate you you won't be able to develop this

00:45:19.720 capacity for solitude and as a matter of fact there's a there's an incredible um new study that

00:45:27.500 showed that after six minutes people without a device who were just asked to sit quietly without a

00:45:35.060 device or a book begin to give themselves electroshocks rather than just be willing to

00:45:42.820 sit alone without a device i mean that's kind of where it's come to and that's that's pretty amazing

00:45:49.440 yeah well it sounds like the the phone makes us other directed i guess it was reisman that talked

00:45:55.300 about in the lonely crowd yes yes reisman reisman yeah absolutely other directed to i would say other

00:46:01.460 directed to a higher power other directed to it to a degree that he never would have been able to

00:46:07.760 anticipate yeah he wrote that 50 year like in the 1950s so 60 years ago so yes didn't think about the

00:46:14.100 internet well um professor turkle before we head out i mean i'd love for you just to leave some i don't

00:46:19.380 know some action points i always like to end podcasts this way but anything that people can do today

00:46:23.700 uh to reclaim conversation in their own lives besides the solitude thing we got this i think

00:46:29.700 that we've figured out the importance of solitude and the nuance of your argument there um but anything

00:46:33.940 else that people can do to reclaim conversation absolutely um i don't believe in you know you know

00:46:39.940 people spending so many hours doing this or so many hours doing this but i do believe in spaces

00:46:45.460 you in your car no devices you're not no texting for you you're driving and no devices for anyone else

00:46:56.180 in the car the car is a sacred space for conversation if people in your family complain you just say or

00:47:02.500 friends you just say you know it's really important that i talk to you and the car is really a great place

00:47:08.720 for that so in our family this is how it works and try not to wait until your child is 15

00:47:15.380 to 16 years old to make to explain this but if you explain this to a relatively young child that this

00:47:22.740 is just how your family culture is they will accept it they'll be okay with that um so that's the first

00:47:30.260 thing uh sacred spaces um uh and then it works sacred spaces at work no matter what level you are in

00:47:39.620 your organization the same designing for conversation in the workplace has to be part of how we think

00:47:47.700 about work going forward getting rid of this idea that the pilot in the cockpit is is is working is the

00:47:56.580 best way of working that that's the person who's really accomplishing stuff that would go a tremendous

00:48:02.260 way toward reclaiming conversation just getting that out of our minds i i just gave a a talk the

00:48:09.220 other day and and somebody stood up and he says but but after listening to me he says but isn't it

00:48:13.940 really that don't you get the most done when you just have your earphones on and you're just at your

00:48:18.020 screen and doing your email and i just looked at him and i said no no that's not when you get the most

00:48:24.740 done that's not all the research is showing that isn't when you get the most done and the third

00:48:30.500 thing what would be to get rid of multitasking um we we've we've kidded ourselves long enough we all

00:48:38.420 know that multitasking is is is interfering not only with conversation it's interfering with productivity

00:48:46.820 and it's it's inhibiting us um from from from from really from knowing ourselves and from knowing

00:48:56.580 what we think and and we um are distracting ourselves and and really unitasking is the next

00:49:04.020 big thing and conversation is a human way to practice um unitasking so that's another big thing

00:49:14.100 and you know my favorite is like author's choice just to end up you know my my favorite line in my

00:49:19.940 book is that conversation you know that that technology makes us forget what we know about

00:49:25.300 life um that father who is is tech is texting and doing his emails when he's giving his daughter a

00:49:32.900 bath he knows he knows that he's doing something that isn't good for his child and he he's doing it

00:49:39.860 anyway so accept your vulnerabilities and design around them and uh conversation is there to claim along

00:49:48.340 with a better relationship to each other and to politics and to the world fantastic well professor

00:49:54.580 turkle work people find out more about the book at um www reclaiming conversation book.com

00:50:03.620 fantastic well professor turkle thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure

00:50:07.140 my my pleasure my guest today was sherry turkle she's the author of the book reclaiming conversation

00:50:11.940 the power of talk in a digital age and you can find that on amazon.com and bookstores

00:50:15.700 everywhere go check it out fantastic book well that wraps up another edition of the art of

00:50:23.140 manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website

00:50:27.220 at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy this podcast i'd really appreciate it if you give

00:50:30.820 us a review on itunes or stitcher that help us get some feedback on how we can improve the show

00:50:34.900 as well as get the word out about the podcast to others as always i appreciate your continued

00:50:39.060 support of the podcast thank you so much and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:50:43.940 you

The Art of Manliness - November 13, 2015

#155： Reclaiming Conversation

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript