Now
everyone is connected, is this the death of conversation?
As our
meeting places fall silent, save for tapping on screens, it seems we have
mistaken ubiquitous connection for the real thing
…
The New York Times last week declared
the death of conversation. While mobile phones may at last be falling
victim to etiquette, this is largely because even talk is considered too
intimate a contact. No such bar applies to emailing, texting, messaging,
posting and tweeting. It is ubiquitous, the ultimate connectivity, the
brain wired full-time to infinity.
…
Psychologists
have identified this as "fear of conversation". People wear
headphones as "conversational avoidance devices". The
internet connects us to the entire world, but it is a world bespoke,
edited, deleted, sanitised. Doubt and debate become trivial because
every statement can be instantly verified or denied by Google. There is no
time for the thesis, antithesis, synthesis of Socratic
dialogue, the skeleton of true conversation.
…
We have, says Turkle, confused
connection with conversation – "the illusion of companionship
without the demands of relationship". Human friendship is rich,
messy and complicated. It requires patience and tolerance, even
compromise. As we push other people off into a world of question and
answer, connection and information, friendship becomes ersatz virtuality.
…
...
Those who used to call a friend in trouble now send a text. Phone calls
are to register urgency or shout anger, with corresponding loss of nuance
and sensibility. From Mailer to Eminem, the modern cultural hero is
expressionist. He or she has "attitude", and to prove it uses
the F-word as often as possible.
Miller
notes that public discourse is dominated by contention, by
"intersecting monologues". Anger, lack of inhibition,
"letting it all hang out" are treated as assets in public
debate, in place of a willingness to listen and adjust one's point of
view. Politics thus becomes a platform of rival angers. American
politicians are ever more polarised, reduced to conveying a genuine
hate for each other.
