Michelle: A major study found that college students today are 40% less empathetic than they were just a couple of decades ago. Forty percent. The researchers point to one primary culprit, and it’s probably in your hand right now. Mark: Whoa, forty percent? That’s not a small dip. That’s a cliff. You’re telling me our phones are literally making us less caring? That feels… dramatic. Michelle: It is dramatic, and it’s the exact crisis at the heart of what we're exploring today, from Sherry Turkle's book, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. Mark: Right, and Turkle is the perfect person to write this. She's a sociologist and psychologist who's been at MIT for decades, founding the Initiative on Technology and Self. She's not some luddite; she's been studying our relationship with tech since the very beginning. Michelle: Exactly. She's very clear that this isn't an anti-technology book. It’s a pro-conversation book. And she argues that we've started to sacrifice conversation for what she calls "mere connection." Mark: Mere connection. I feel that. It’s like having a thousand Facebook friends but no one to call when your car breaks down. So where does this empathy gap come from? How does my phone actually make me less caring?

Michelle: It starts with what Turkle calls the "flight from conversation." We're using our devices to sidestep the messiness, the unpredictability, and the vulnerability of real, face-to-face talk. And that’s where empathy is born. She tells this incredible story from a middle school she calls Holbrooke. Mark: Okay, I’m curious. What was happening at Holbrooke? Michelle: The dean and teachers noticed something was off with the twelve-year-olds. They were seeing what they called an "empathy gap." The kids seemed to be struggling with basic friendship skills. For example, the dean pulled one seventh-grade girl aside who had cruelly excluded a classmate from a party. When she asked the girl how she thought the other student felt, the girl just stared blankly and said, "I don't have feelings about this." Mark: Wow. "I don't have feelings about this." That's… chilling. It’s not even defensive, it's just… empty. Michelle: Exactly. Robotic was the word the dean used. The teachers realized the students were losing practice in the "empathic arts." Instead of talking to each other in the dining hall, they were just showing each other things on their phones. The conversation, when it happened, was about what was on the screen, not what was in their heads or hearts. Mark: I see that everywhere. People sitting together at a restaurant, not talking, just scrolling in tandem. It’s become a modern social ritual. Michelle: Turkle even gives it a name: "phubbing." Phone-snubbing. And it’s become so common that college students she interviewed had developed a system to manage it, called the "rule of three." Mark: The rule of three? That sounds like a drinking game. Michelle: Almost. The rule is, you can't look at your phone at the dinner table unless at least three other people have their heads up and are engaged in the conversation. The result is that everyone is constantly scanning the table, not to listen, but to see if they have permission to check out. Mark: That’s awful! It turns conversation into a game of Red Light, Green Light. And it means you can never have a deep or serious talk, because the moment it gets real, someone’s going to hit their three-person quota and dive back into their phone. Michelle: And that’s her point. The conversations become shallow. They stick to light topics because you can’t be vulnerable when you know you might be talking to yourself in five seconds. We’re choosing connection—the quick text, the easy like—over the hard work of actual conversation. Mark: Okay, but I have to push back a little. I know some critics have said her examples feel a bit… elite. Private schools, college kids. Is this a universal problem, or is this a problem for people with too much time and too many devices? Michelle: That’s a fair critique, and she does focus on those environments. But her argument is that the psychological mechanism is universal. The technology is designed to offer us an escape from boredom and anxiety, and that’s a human vulnerability, not an economic one. It offers the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. And that’s a trade we’re all tempted to make. Mark: The illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. That hits hard. It’s like we want the reward without the risk. Michelle: And that’s the perfect pivot, because Turkle's answer to this crisis is surprisingly inward-looking. She argues the problem isn't just how we talk to others, but how we've stopped being able to talk to ourselves.

Michelle: She frames the whole book around a quote from Henry David Thoreau: "I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society." Turkle argues that we’ve become so focused on the chairs for friendship and society that we’ve forgotten the most important one: the chair for solitude. Mark: Hold on, that seems completely backward. You’re saying the key to being better with people is to spend more time alone? Michelle: Precisely. She calls it the "virtuous circle." The capacity for solitude allows you to get in touch with your own thoughts and feelings. That self-awareness is the foundation for empathy—your ability to understand what others are feeling. And that empathy is what makes you a good conversationalist, which in turn enriches your relationships and your own self-reflection. Solitude fuels empathy, which fuels conversation. Mark: And our phones break that circle. Michelle: They shatter it. Because we're never alone anymore. The moment we feel a pang of boredom or anxiety, we reach for the phone. We're losing the capacity for solitude. She cites this terrifying study where participants were left in a room alone for just fifteen minutes. Their only options were to sit with their thoughts or give themselves a mild electric shock. Mark: Oh, I know that feeling. Honestly, after about five minutes, I might be reaching for the shock button myself. What happened? Michelle: A significant number of people, especially men, chose to shock themselves rather than be alone with their thoughts. That’s how profound our "disconnection anxiety" has become. We would rather feel physical pain than the discomfort of our own minds. Mark: That’s a devastating diagnosis of modern life. We’ve forgotten how to just be. Michelle: But there’s hope. Turkle shares this amazing story about a device-free summer camp. Kids arrive, hand over their phones, and spend five days hiking, talking, and just being with each other. Researchers tested their ability to read human emotions from photos before and after the camp. Mark: And let me guess, it went up? Michelle: Dramatically. After just five days without screens, their ability to recognize emotions and their capacity for empathy skyrocketed. One fourteen-year-old boy described it as having time "where you have nothing to do but think quietly and talk to your friends." They rediscovered the virtuous circle. Mark: So the damage isn't permanent. Our brains can bounce back if we give them a chance. It’s like our empathy muscle has atrophied, and we just need to start working it out again. Michelle: That's exactly it. And it leads to the big question: if we know this, what do we do about it? If we're all stuck in this cycle, how do we break it?

Mark: Yeah, it feels like a vicious cycle. We're losing empathy because we're fleeing conversation, and we're fleeing conversation because we can't stand being alone. How do we get off this hamster wheel? Michelle: Turkle’s solution is what she calls the "talking cure," and it starts with being intentional. It’s about creating what she calls "sacred spaces" for conversation—times and places where devices are put away, and talk is protected. Mark: Sacred spaces. I like that. It’s not about banning phones, but about creating sanctuaries from them. Michelle: Exactly. And sometimes the need for these spaces is expressed in the most heartbreaking ways. She tells a story about a father, a management consultant, who takes his seven-year-old daughter on a school field trip. He’s recently divorced and sees this as a golden opportunity to connect with her. Mark: That sounds like a great plan. Michelle: It was. But he brought his phone. And for the entire day, he was half-present. He was taking pictures to post later, checking emails, texting. He was physically there, but mentally, he was somewhere else. At one point, his daughter, Simone, just looks at him and says, "Daddy, put your phone down." Mark: Oh, man. From a seven-year-old. That’s a gut punch. Michelle: It gets worse. Later, at a museum, his phone battery dies. And he describes this feeling of sheer panic. He says, "I'm not even a person." His identity was so tied to the device that without it, he felt lost and didn't know how to just be with his own daughter. He missed the entire day. The real emergency wasn't a call he might have missed; it was the conversation he never had. Mark: That story is a perfect, painful illustration of the whole book. The intention to connect was there, but the device got in the way. So what’s a practical first step? How do we create these sacred spaces without it feeling like a punishment? Michelle: Turkle mentions a simple but brilliant strategy some families use: the "cell phone tower" game. At dinner, everyone stacks their phones in the middle of the table. The first person who cracks and reaches for their phone has to do the dishes. Mark: The cell phone tower… my family needs that. It feels a bit artificial, but I guess that's the point, right? We need to build new rituals because the old ones have been broken. Michelle: It’s about being intentional. The kids at the device-free camp, the families playing the cell phone tower game—they all recognize that something valuable is being lost. And they're willing to try something, even something a little silly, to get it back. Mark: So, when you boil it all down, what's the one thing Turkle would want us to take away from all this? What's the core message?

Michelle: I think it’s that conversation is the most human—and humanizing—thing we do. It's not just about exchanging information. It's the crucible where empathy, intimacy, creativity, and even our own sense of self are forged. We are sacrificing this profound, essential practice for the thin gruel of mere connection. Mark: So the challenge isn't to ditch our tech, but to be brave enough to put it down. To choose the person over the notification, the messy, real-time conversation over the perfectly edited text. Michelle: It's about recognizing that our devices are designed to be seductive. As Turkle says, our vulnerability is their business model. They promise to take away our loneliness, but they can end up making us lonelier. Reclaiming conversation is about reclaiming our own attention and, ultimately, our own humanity. Mark: I love that. It’s not about guilt, it’s about intention. It’s a call to be more present in our own lives. Michelle: Maybe the first step is just to notice. The next time you're with someone you care about, just notice where your phone is. And ask yourself: what chair are you sitting in right now? Solitude, friendship, or just… society? Mark: A powerful question to end on. It puts the choice right back in our hands. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.