Hi welcome to my blog about creating conversations. Let’s talk today about how technology has changed what we how we relate to each other. We often find ourselves saying less in person and using digital media more. Many people feel panicked and disconnected if they do not have their phones on
continually. Sherry Turkle, Ph.D., author of Reclaiming Conversation, is a sociologist and psychologist and has spent the last 30 years researching people’s relationships with technology and how it has changed us. When we are so connected to our devices and screens that we become disconnected from each other, we risk our empathy and the capacity to be
truly touched by each other’s lives. We do have remarkable resilience to recover this empathy. When children put away their devices for five days while at camp, they began to recover empathy for each other. The children
said that their relationships at camp were more meaningful and enjoyable than their friendships at school. At camp they talked to each other about what was on their minds, but at school they talked to each other about what was on their phones. The camp counsellors offered the children something close to
exotic, it was their undivided attention. Campers who return each year share frankly that it is hard to continue to be their “camp selves” because at home friends and family are preoccupied with technology and it is incredibly difficult not to go along.
The most important conversations you will have are with yourself. Allowing yourself the solitude and time to be with your own thoughts will make room for innovation. We need to create time and space to ponder, imagine and
wonder. Then we can take these thoughts and share them with others. We have to slow down in order to ask simple questions. Getting an immediate
answer all the time does not mean that we have asked the best question. We end up scaling down our questions which makes approaching complex situations much more difficult. So, give yourself permission to create a quiet time in your life, perhaps time in the car without radio, time to walk without your phone, time to simply be. This is not wasted time. It is valuable time to reflect on what is truly important to you. To tell yourself the truth. If you are given an email request, allow yourself to respond that you will need time to think about it. This shows you are giving the email the value of time and consideration. Fast responses are just that… fast not necessarily wise. For most of us, reconnecting with conversation will happen when we carve
out sacred time to be device free in our everyday lives. We can do this by coming together with our families and talking about having mealtimes without media, with more time away from our devices we will develop a better sense of when we need solitude and when our loved ones and co-workers need undivided attention. We do not seek simple solutions but a
network of beginnings. Remember the power of your phone it is not an accessory, it is a psychologically powerful device that changes not just what you do but also has the potency to change who you are. The mere presence
of a phone changes the tone and quality of the conversation. People try to keep their conversation light and less substantive when a phone is present. We know that the sight of a phone means the other person’s attention is
divided. Rich conversations have difficulty competing with even a silent phone. Creating conversation in the age of social media requires consideration and time to think and time to have an open dialogue with each other. Unitasking not multi-tasking is vital to creativity and productivity. Dialogue is a uniquely human way of unitasking. I hope you learned something new and helpful. This content is for educational purposes only not medical advice. I love reading your comments on social media so keep sharing what you have learned and loved.