In general, when someone says, “we need to talk,” it sounds threatening. My summer reading has led me to a book called Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, by Sherry Turkle. For those who love to communicate by text and email, we need to talk–more, and if we fail to do so, the best of our humanity is being threatened.
Let me come clean. I am not the first to embrace new technology. I have a suspicion that’s combined with the fear that I won’t be able to “get it,” so I tend to ignore it. I am a slow embracer, always wondering if there isn’t a hidden cost. I still don’t have a Kindle, preferring the feel and smell of real paper. So Turkle’s book confirms my suspicions. There, I’m clean.
Technology is atrophying the best of what makes us human.
Sherry Turkle is not a Luddite evader of all things technological. She has spent the last thirty years studying the relationship surrounding technology and human relationships. She teaches at MIT sociology and psychology. What she is discovering is not encouraging. Overall, her point is technology, especially as applied to social media (smart phones, texting, email) is atrophying the best of what makes us human. In particular, she highlights research which shows a dramatic drop in empathy within young people who use social media instead of face-to-face communication. A decrease in empathy, the capacity to understand how someone else feels, and a rise in anxiety.
Research shows that deep down, social media makes people feel more isolated.
There are many ironies around this. Research shows that deep down, social media makes people feel more isolated (there is growing evidence how Facebook also contributes to unhappiness). It’s a way of trying to have more control and less anxiety around conversations, only to be checked by a device we can’t live without and which, research says, increases our anxiety with feelings of, “am I missing out on something?” and “do people like me?” People want cleaner, less risky, and less demanding conversations because of anxiety, but they end up, by overusing technology, in more anxious places.
Anecdotally, she notes how Steve Jobs would not allow tablets or smartphones at the family dinner table, encouraging his family instead in having real conversations about life, books, and history. How ironic. Other research shows that one of the greatest indicators of health in family relationships is time spent at the dinner table–in real conversation. We do in fact need to talk to be our best selves.
Every so often I remind myself and others that control is more elusive than we think. In fact, control is an illusion. Wake up to reality. It is something we strive for, but the more we strive, the more disillusioned we will ultimately become–and, I would add along with Sherry Turkle– the less human. The pursuit of control just doesn’t work in human relationships. Instead, we have to go through the clumsy and messy face-to-face encounters with others who are as needy and unpredictable as we are.
God came in the person of Jesus Christ to have face-to-face conversations.
Think of it this way. God gave Israel what we now call the Old Testament. But when that got twisted into a book of rules some used to control others, or just ignored, he came in person, to have a prolonged conversation, in the person of Jesus Christ, face-to-face. Sending a text message would not do. We need to talk.
–Pastor Mark, the Imperfect Pastor
Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men. (Matthew 4:19 NKJV)
The Imperfect Pastor 