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Endless Distraction

Nice interview about the loss of conversation. The way the balance between having a real human conversation and a digital life is described makes sense:

..we have now created an environment that will distract us to distraction. My recipe does not involve my giving up my phone. It’s too useful. But it means not using it on occasions like this when I am trying to give you my full attention. The human voice occupies a lot of bandwidth if you listen to it properly. If I was also texting, you would not be getting a sense of me.

When J was still living at home with me, she used to call me out on being distracted by phone. To her credit, she used hers sparingly if at all when in the middle of a conversation. I acknowledged the problem and agreed on no phone at dinner table rule. As Turkle rightly points out, adults are often the worst offenders and kids want to have a real conversation. That is a short-lived period in their childhood when they want to hear and be heard. It is tragedy for the adults around them to squander it if the want to get to know this child. I am grateful J pointed out the error of my ways and I had time to recover. 

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