IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2016 - 10

Book Reviews
A. David Wunsch

Reclaiming Conversation
Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age.
By Sherry Turkle. New York, NY: Penguin Press, 2015, 436 pages.

riting in 1930, the
German cultural critic
and essayist, Walter Benjamin, tells
about his Berlin childhood, circa 1900. The telephone was
then a newcomer to his household
and he remarks, "Not many of those
who use the apparatus [now] know
what devastation it once wreaked
in family circles." A school friend
might call him between 2 and 4 in
the afternoon causing "an alarm
signal that menaced not only my
parents' midday nap but the historical era that underwrote and enveloped this siesta." He continues, "[the
telephone's] ringing served to multiply the terrors of the Berlin household." Rushing for the phone he is
"... inexorably delivered over to the
voice that now sounded ... it obliterated my consciousness of time,
my firm resolve, my sense of duty"
[1]. Such was the power of the
medium that any proposal from a
friend on the other end of the line
would be accepted.
We need to be reminded of how
disruptive this invention was - the
first to bring, uninvited, a disembodied voice into a home. One should
keep some historical perspective
in mind as we read a diatribe notably lacking in historical grounding,
Sherry Turkle's Reclaiming Conver-

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2016.2634719
Date of publication: 12 December 2016

sation. This is an important and
provocative book that effectively
describes some major concerns of
our era. Her target is electronic communications media that emerged in
our time - most notably the smartphone and handheld mobile devices
like the iPad. Lest you think that the
telephone's ability to shape history
and civilization are nothing compared to our newest gadgetry, consider that a number of historians,
e.g., Stephen Kern in his Culture of
Time and Space, have implicated
the telephone and telegraph in the
July crisis of 1914 - the misadventure leading to World War I. Kern
maintains that diplomats of the era
were overwhelmed by the speed and
volume of electrical communication
- they were unable to reflect and
act with the prudence the situation
demanded; war was the result.
I know of no book of the last
century and a half that criticizes the
telephone with the same passion
and confidence that Sherry Turkle
brings to bear on the mobile devices
of our era. Dr. Turkle is a Professor
in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at M.I.T. Her Ph.D.
is in psychology and social relations,
and she approaches her subject as a
psychologist steeped in the psychoanalytic tradition. She believes in the
power of conversation: "conversation
cures." Here are some of her findings
based on conversations with over
300 teens and young adults, corpoIEEE Technology and Society Magazine

rate CEO's, parents, as well as her
readings in peer reviewed journals:
■

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Children and young people
spend so much time texting
each other that they don't develop a capacity for face to face
talk and the decline in such talk
leads to a failure to develop a
capacity for empathy.
Parents feel cut off from their
children because the kids are
so caught up in using their
mobile devices.
The uninterrupted family dinner
is vanishing because both adults
and children are constantly distracted by their devices.
Parents feel guilty; they believe
that they are not giving their
children full attention because
they are so distracted by their
own devices, e.g., a young
father giving his kid a bath
checks his phone for messages.
Children beg their parents to
put away their devices and provide communication.
A recent college graduate reports
to Turkle, who apparently agrees,
that thanks to mobile devices
"conversation died in 2009."
Even in a small class she teaches at M.I.T., where students discuss painful family matters, a
large fraction of her students
were distracted by their mobile
devices - suggesting a lack of
empathy for their classmates.

DECEMBER 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2016