Back to Conversation

Smart phones have undoubtedly changedpeople's way of communication. They not only make friends thousands of milesaway close at hand, but also exclude relatives close at hand thousands of milesaway. It's common for a group of friends at the dinner table to play with theirmobile phones in silence, but not everyone can accept this way.

In 2013, Business Insider conducted anationwide survey on how and when people use smart phones. Through the analysisof the survey results of people aged 45-60, it is found that the elderly arestrongly against playing with mobile phones at the dinner table. When beingasked whether they accept people's checking Facebook/Twitter in dinner time,based on the data shown below, most of the elderly interviewed saw this behavioras totally unacceptable.

So, what is the cause of thisphenomenon? Many people attribute this resistance to the conflict betweentraditional ideas of the old generation and the trendy lifestyle of the newgeneration. However, according to the book "Reclaiming Conversation",the author Sherry Turkle considers playing with mobile phone as a way aroundconversation, tempted by the possibilities of a text or an email in which wedon't have to look, listen, or reveal ourselves. Conversation is energyconsuming. Compared to texting on a mobile phone, conversation requires us topay attention to body movements, voice, eye contact, manners, empathy, andoverall thoughts, while chatting on mobile phones is not such a nuisance atall, which allows people to find stimulation freely according to their ownpreferences. But from this point of view, escaping from the social reality andenter the virtual world of mobile phones, is it some kind of selfishness?

This cartoon provides us with a trueportrayal of the contemporary family. The girl in the cartoon would rathershare the cake with unfamiliar netizens on the Internet, than share it with herreal brother. In real world, she is unwilling to share. In virtual world, hersharing not really means to share either——the self-presentation on socialmedia, the impulse to let friends "enjoy" all the details of life andexperience, its real purpose is to make others envy her, praise her, andappreciate her. This is just a manifestation of selfishness. In addition, onsocial media, she may only care about whether someone likes it, but she doesnot care about the state or feeling of the person who likes it, and how longthey haven't met or spoken to each other. In that case, she just judges herfriendship by whether someone like it or not. Conversation disappeared, and isreplaced by a virtual wall, which turned away people both in the physical worldand virtual world.

As the saying goes, the biggest distancein the world is that people can't start a face-to-face conversation when theysit together, let alone the exchange of ideas and the collision of hearts. Wehave entered a touch-screen era. People walking on the road, passengers sittingand standing on the bus, and even diners eating, are always clicking on thescreen in their hands. We have begun to realize this kind of indifferencebetween people, but few people really start to take action, stay away fromtheir mobile phones for a while, and spend more time and energy on face-to-faceconversation.

I still remember when I was young, sincemobile phones and the Internet become popular among us, my grandparents startedto call social networking as "drug addiction". Compared with drugsthat cause physical harm, social networks will cost us more from the spiritualperspective. We just feel like being in the middle of a new OpiumWar——marketers have made it business strategy clear to get users addicted. Butthis time, instead of opium, drug dealers are selling those colorful apps.

One of my friends told me that his twothumbs felt a little stiff because he played with his mobile phone for a longtime. Another friend fell down the stairs and hurt his leg when watching thenews with his mobile phone. More and more people around us are immersed intheir own virtual world and set up their own information island. The virtualworld on mobile phones have completely changed our lifestyle. It starts todominate our physical world, so it is increasingly urgent to find our way back.And what we should do, is to reclaim conversation.

In "Reclaiming Conversation",Thoreau's three chairs are used to illustrate three situations of conversation,staying alone, with two people and between groups. Sherry Turkle alsocreatively added a fourth chair, a second nature, the artificial nature, as anew medium for conversation.

Sherry Turkle's first chair symbolizessolitude and self-reflection. To reclaim conversation, speaking and listeningwith heart is the most important skill to learn. Sherry Turkle has proposedseveral ways to stay alone, such as reading fictional novels to help improveempathy and attention. With a mobile phone, when we feel bored, we know that wecan find fun somewhere else, which makes us less concentrated to explore our innerworld. To get back to the state of being alone, we must learn to experience theboring moment, take it as an opportunity to return to our heart, and at leastinsist on not looking for stimulation elsewhere for a period of time. HannahArendt believes that all thinking takes place in solitude. The most importantdialogue in life is with yourself. When we start conversation again, we startby being alone again.

The second chair symbolizes theconversation about family, friendship, and love. Parents should get lessengaged in mobile phone business or entertainment, and pay more attention totheir children on the side. The same is true for friendship and love. Friendsand lovers should be devoted to conversation, switching between chat apps orinteractive software and face-to-face communication.

The third chair is group conversationinvolving education and work. We should know that technology progress cannotreplace the physical contact of teachers and students, employers and employees.Sherry Turkle has also proposed some possible options, such as creating afavorable environment for conversation, turning off and handing in the mobilephone during the meeting, which can improve the efficiency and reduce theinterference.

The definition of Sherry Turkle's fourthchair is closer to what we often call the virtual world. Caring machineschallenge our most basic notions of what it means to commit to each other.Empathy apps claim they will tutor us back to being fully human. Theseproposals can bring us to the end of our forgetting: Now we have to ask if webecome more "human" when we give our most human jobs away. It is amoment to reconsider that delegation. It is not a moment to reject technology,but to find ourselves. We have to make the corrections, and to remember who weare——we are creatures of history, of deep psychology, of complex relationships,of conversation which is artless, risky, and face-to-face.

So, we should remember and carry on thevalue of conversation. Conversation can be a face-to-face chat, or a letterfrom afar. In fact, in today's touch-screen era, people can also use voice orvideo to let distant relatives and friends have face-to-face meetings.Conversation is a kind of interpersonal relationship that goes step by step.People understand more about each other's background and personalities throughthe conversation, and gradually come closer to each other's heart. People gainrecognition and respect through conversation, find friends with commonaspirations through conversation, obtain knowledge and inspirations withprofessors and scholars through conversation. All these are the best gifts thatconversation brings to us, which mobile phones cannot provide.

As a conclusion, "ReclaimingConversation" makes us understand that high-quality conversation is veryimportant for a high-quality life. mobile phones and other electronic devicesare just tools. They should be used for us but not bound by them. Through conversation,we can cultivate empathy, which is closely related to all aspects of life andour human nature. Marx said: human nature is the sum of all kinds of socialrelations. Every conversation is not only an opportunity to determine this kindof social relationship, but also a channel for human beings to expand theirself and interpersonal relationship. Let us seize the opportunity to reclaimconversation, sit down and have a quick cup of coffee.