Sherry Turkle – the flight from

conversation… a response
In today’s New York Times post Sherry Turkle talks about the value of conversation
AND solitude and the limitations of digital connection. It’s a difficult piece to read, not
for its overfocus on context/stories/facts or for its technical language, it lacks both, but
for the way it which it will polarize the reader. You probably know already whether you
will like it. She critiques the new technologies of connection for both cheapening
conversation and eliminating solitude. In this piece I’m going to try and unravel one of
these arguments from the whole and address the way that Turkle hearkens back to an
imaginary past where people had long, meaningful conversations with each other about
what was important to them… she creates a simulacrum.

The unravelling – solitude good, but not relevant

The points that are made in the article about solitude are very compelling. I think she’s
entirely right about the slow dying of solitude, and the need for free thinking space. I
think that I as a person and as a parent need to model the value of alone time, of
thinking time, of device free time. This is not new, the radio and the TV have started this
process… and my Galaxy SII has continued it. All true. It is not, however, either the title
or the direction of the article. It is an entirely separate stream of very reasonable
arguments that seem, at first, to support her main thesis… That conversation is being
turned away from, when in fact it has nothing to do with it.

So. Out with the solitude arguments. The author’s long walks on the beach and her
advice to take free quiet alone time is well noted and not relevant to the argument.

To conversation

The piece is difficult in that it claims a great deal of research (presented in Alone
Together) but cherry picks out a few anecdotal examples meant to illustrate her points.
This confuses things, as it seems to draw on the history of research… where one would
expect someone trying to see the whole story, and yet we only hear of the examples of
people connecting superficially.