“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
Simone Weil
Emails. Teams. WhatsApp. Instagram. Facebook…
We are on our devices 24/7. Always switched on.
Yet I wonder if we are actually communicating with each other.
Sherry Turkle, an MIT professor who has spent decades studying the relationship between people and technology, argues that we have gradually started to trade conversation for connection.
In her book Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age (2015), she shows that while technology helps us stay in touch, it can also diminish the quality of our interactions.
Have we sacrificed conversation for connection? That uncomfortable thought has stayed with me. Because connection isn’t the same thing as conversation.
Presence is lost
I left home almost 20 years ago. Since then I have relied on phone, text, email and Skype to stay in touch with family and friends, and I have seen the effects that technology has had on my relationships.
You can send someone a message halfway around the world and find out what they had for breakfast. But somehow that falls miserably short of sitting down in person for coffee and having a face-to-face conversation.
What’s missing is presence. A voice call gets you closer: you hear the hesitation, the laugh, the breath before a hard sentence. A video call with the camera on gets you closer still. But each is a step further away from simply being there in person.
What conversation builds
Turkle says conversation is a practice, and when we lose it, we lose one of the main ways we develop:
- empathy and patience
- listening
- self-knowledge
- imagination and tolerance for the unknown
- the ability to disagree, and to see another person’s point of view
- intimacy and trust.
I agree with her. When we sit across from another person, we pick up on their tone, body language, pauses and emotion. We respond in real time and adjust our thinking based on what we hear. These unscripted moments build stronger relationships and deeper understanding.
These skills matter not only in our personal relationships but also in our workplaces and communities. Without meaningful conversation, we risk becoming less able to understand one another, and less comfortable with complexity and difference.
Meaningful conversation requires time + attention + presence + vulnerability + listening.
Face-to-face conversation vs digital communication
| Face-to-face conversation | Digital communication |
|---|---|
| Presence – you are physically with another person. | Connection without presence – you can communicate without sharing the same physical space. |
| Full attention – conversation usually asks us to attend to one person at a time. | Divided attention – devices make it easy to communicate with many people at once. |
| Non-verbal communication – facial expression, posture, tone, gestures and silence all carry meaning. | Reduced cues – much of this information disappears in text. |
| Spontaneous – conversations are live, unscripted and a trip into the unknown. | Curated – messages are planned, edited and carefully constructed. |
| Vulnerability – you cannot control how another person responds. | Control – you decide when and how you respond, reducing vulnerability. |
| Requires patience – pauses, interruptions and misunderstandings must be negotiated. | Optimised for speed – short messages and quick responses are preferred. |
| Builds empathy – encountering another person’s emotions can stretch our capacity to understand them. | Reduces empathy – cues can be ignored when the other person is not present. |
| Allows ambiguity – not everything has to be resolved immediately. | Favours closure – messages often seek an answer or a reaction. |
| Shared experience – eating, walking, laughing or sitting together becomes part of the relationship. | Informational connection – we exchange information without sharing an experience. |
| Self-knowledge – talking reveals things about ourselves we didn’t know before we spoke. | Self-presentation – we construct the version of ourselves we want others to see. |
None of this makes digital communication bad. It is good for sharing information and coordinating tasks. But complex, sensitive or important conversations usually go better face to face. They resolve misunderstandings faster, build trust and collaboration, and create a stronger sense of belonging.
The cost of being “alone together”
Think about the last time you had coffee with someone.
The conversation begins, then a phone vibrates on the table. Perhaps nobody checks the notification. Maybe the phone isn’t even touched.
But something changes. The possibility of interruption is suddenly present.
Turkle’s phrase for this is “alone together”, the title of her earlier book. We are physically side by side, but part of us is somewhere else. The phone doesn’t need to interrupt a conversation to affect it. Its mere presence can divide our attention.
Many of us recognise this in ourselves:
- Checking notifications during conversations and meetings
- Scrolling social media while watching television with family
- Responding to emails during meals
- Reaching for our phones the moment we get bored.
We have to be very deliberate and intentional with our screen time to ensure that we don’t go into autopilot and end up living in a virtual world.
The concern isn’t simply screen time. It’s what happens to us when face-to-face conversation becomes rare.
Reclaiming conversation
The answer isn’t abandoning technology. It’s becoming more intentional about how and when we use it. Technology can support our relationships, but it must not replace them.
- Prioritise conversation. For important, sensitive or complex issues, meet face to face or call someone rather than relying on email or text messages.
- Resist the urge to multitask. Rediscover the joy of giving your whole attention to doing just one thing.
- Put phones away. Create space for uninterrupted conversations with family, friends and colleagues.
- Create phone-free spaces. The living room, the dinner table, family events and social gatherings should be where conversation takes priority.
- Embrace boredom. Not every spare moment needs to be filled with a screen. Silence and solitude help creativity and self-awareness.
- Keep devices out of your bedroom. Boundaries between technology and personal time support both your wellbeing and your relationships.
A challenge
Try it this week. The next time you meet someone for coffee, lunch or a catch-up, put your phone away. You might be surprised by the quality of the conversation that follows. Let me know what you notice in the comments below.
In a world where we are constantly connected, giving someone our presence may be one of the most beautiful things we can offer. Because conversation is more than communication. It’s how we build relationships, develop empathy and connect with one another.
We need to stop, and reclaim it.
Further reading
- Connected, but alone? – Sherry Turkle (TED Talk)
- Reclaiming Conversation – Sherry Turkle (Talks at Google)
- How screens stole childhood and how to get it back – Jonathan Haidt (TED Talk)
- Sherry Turkle, Reclaiming Conversation (2015) and Alone Together (2011)
- Words are fossils of a forgotten way of looking at the world – on Turkle’s newer work and AI
