Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age

Empathy is the ability to understand how others feel and to imagine their perspective. Empathy requires listening and attention, and conversation is the best mechanism for cultivating both. Turkle features the idea of empathy most prominently in her account of the troubled Holbrooke students, and she spends much time examining the importance of empathy in child development, particularly as it is impacted by digital technology.

Turkle defines The Goldilocks Effect in terms of people managing distance: “We can’t get enough of each other if we can have each other at a digital distance—not too close, not too far, just right” (21).

Mindspace is Turkle’s term for the privacy offered by libraries and the mailbox: they are both private, and no one except the owner has a right to know them. She calls her grandmother’s mindspace her “deepest expression of patriotism” (302). Turkle wonders how to get her daughter—raised with the Internet—to understand the concept of mindspace in the same way.

MOOC stands for “massive open online courses” (227). A MOOC is a type of class in which students watch a series of educational videos before taking tests on what they learned. MOOCs eliminate the need for physical lecture halls and give students the chance to learn at their own pace. However, MOOCs do not encourage conversation, and the students miss out on the learning opportunities that are unique to in-person lectures.

Turkle quotes Thoreau: “In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick, too” (333). Thoreau saw himself as having the responsibility to be present whenever possible. Turkle uses the nick of time to symbolize a hypothetical fourth chair.

The Panopticon is a thought experiment developed by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Conceived as a prison that would require fewer guards, the Panopticon is shaped like a wheel with spokes. Each spoke houses the prisoners while the hub in the middle functions as the guard tower. However, there is not always a guard in the hub, but the prisoners can’t know when a guard is looking in their direction (or even present). Therefore, they must behave as if they are being watched. Internet surveillance and caching function similarly to the Panopticon. Users may act as if they are being watched when they decide what to share, which comments to make online, and how they portray themselves.

In Reclaiming Conversation, solitude refers to the state of being alone while keeping oneself company. Turkle extends the term to cover the solitude of one’s own thoughts, unimpeded and uninterrupted by devices or technologies. She maintains that solitude is crucial for identity formation and consequently for empathy and community. A central concern in her text is that technology stymies solitude.