Reclaiming Conversation

Sherry Turkle began her career at Harvard University, receiving a bachelor’s degree in psychology and later a joint doctorate in sociology and personality psychology. Currently, she is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. She has written multiple books on developing relationships in a technological society, including Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other; The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit; Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet; Simulation and Its Discontents; and her most recent, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. The latter book, a New York

Turkle writes in her first chapter, “Why a book on conversation?” and goes on to answer that we “begin to feel more at home in the world of our screens… we turn to our phones instead of each other,” and we would rather text or send an email than interact in a face-to-face situation. Turkle argues this throughout her novel, and the main point she attempts to make is that now is the time to make a change to our relationship with technology. An analogy she makes with magic describes her goal: The moment is right. We had a love affair with a technology that seemed magical. But like great magic, it worked by commanding our attention and not letting us see anything but what the magician wanted us to see. Now we are ready to reclaim our attention–for solitude, for friendship, for society.

Reclaiming Conversation serves as a guide to those lost within their digital world, searching for a way out. The book provides a way to regain the important social tool of conversation and the essential emotional tool of empathy. Those who listen to Turkle’s views may be able to grasp onto a world where people speak to each other again, not just to their

We try to use it to fill the holes we feel, but little do we know, we are making the holes. We block out the real world to go into the virtual one, and in turn lose touch with reality. We are losing empathy and conversation, but what are we gaining in return? This is what Turkle attempts to get across to her readers throughout her book, especially within our intimate