One Friday a month, several of us gather for one hour to share how mindfulness has been a part of lives.
The last time we gathered, I shared a book review of Reclaiming Conversation – The Power of Talk in a Digital Age by Sherry Turkle. The author contends that “our rapturous submission to digital technology has led to an atrophying of human capacities like empathy and self-reflection.” The review states that email, texts and social media leave our real selves isolated with the fear of face-to-face conversations. Turkle strongly suggests that conversation is where we learn to “think for ourselves and develop a stable sense of self, which is essential for taking other people as they are.”
Well, that led to discuss email and texting, which all of us do.
We came to the realization that email and texting is not a conversation in the manner in which Turkle suggests. It does not create space where we are fully present. I can ignore an email or text, but it is far more difficult to ignore someone when face-to-face. How does one demonstrate empathy when I can’t see your face, hear your voice or observe your body language? As Turkle points out in her book, a recent study shows a steep decline in empathy among college students, who are heavy users of smartphones.
We concluded that email and texting is useful for sharing information and facts, but not emotions, empathy, core values, and the personal challenges we face in our work or personal relationships. That requires us to create space where face-to-face interactions occur which are fundamental to our human connectedness (or by phone if that is not possible).
I close with a personal example of a colleague who was mindful about whether to email me or call me about the frustration he was experiencing as a board member of which I’m the President. He finally called me after attempting to write an email. Why? He said that an email could not fully convey what he was feeling and he owed it to me to call and talk one-on-one. He made the right choice. And yes, we had a conversation.
