Our society has been in a constant evolution cycle for centuries now, and with so many new technologies making great advancements we sometimes find ourselves too wrapped up in them that tend to lose sight of other important aspects of life. Without a doubt, technology as a whole has pushed us to new heights. Medicine, computers, military systems to name a few out standers. These have come such a long way even since the middle of the 20^th century, pushing their uses to the limit and always adjusting to fit our needs and wants each day. With the abilities and, some may even call it, powers, that technologies allow us, it can sometimes lead us to physically avoided the original way of communication. Sherry Turkel, the author of The Empathy Diaries, dives into the use of technology and how it has changed both us as humans, and the interaction we have with it. The argument she studies is that technology has taken away from the physical world of interactions and puts the creativity of communication to the back burner. Turkle’s book is in constant reverence of high-level communication and is doing so with a pushing and pulling motion of the way we let the latest and greatest dictate our interactions. For unknown reasons, the shaping of young minds has shifted into an almost distraction process, and technology has become the leading challenger when it comes to having these kids fully invested into something that isn’t tangible. It has become in of itself, a game, and these big tech companies charging forward with the latest and greatest, saying ‘The old one we just came out with last year is outdated and bad in these ways… you need this brand new one or you’ll be left behind’. Billions if not trillions of dollars worldwide spent on what some believe is only for affecting the young minds of the world, distractions. Others seeing it as essential for the future of the society they live in, advancing faster than any other tactile knowledge that exists, and worth every penny spent and then some. So, what will it be, distractions and pestilence, or having access to the world right in your hand for the latest price of gold.

I’ve always seen the classroom as a place of information highways, in one direction a person who is excited and knowledgeable on a certain topic will lean into an hour and a half of questions and critical thinking debate points. In the other direction, mostly blank stares at a projector screen, tired eyes, and the frantic clicking of keyboards trying to compress an entire chapter’s worth of short-handed notes into a couple pages of blocked and numbered information points. One-way is crowded and traffic jam-like, the other is easy cruising by going 55 in the middle lane. It should be an appreciated attempt that most professors take when it comes to teaching on a topic and their time being eating away, trying to bring students into the world that they have been involved in for most of their lives, especially in the STEM fields. This is where the interactions and conversations should be the most crucial part to the anticipation of an outcome of any work, where learning new narratives and communicating are at peak form. If I were not for the ability to hold a conversation in person, we would not have the base form of technological communication, it wouldn’t make sense, and in theory there would have been an entire new language as a whole. Turkle loves to challenge the rhetoric to how technology influences us, both for the good and not so good. And this push and pull of challenges strengthens the narrative to even higher levels of intellectual processing pushing beyond the typical hearsay of a college classroom or future work environment.

The opening to “They say, I say” by Graff and Birkenstein is an interesting case. As someone who has written quite a few research papers, albeit some may have been sort of last second or just put to the backburner and we’ll figure out as we go, it’s probably safe to say now that I don’t think I ever really understood the physical structure that goes into a paper. Yes, I know we need an introduction, main topic paragraphs, then a summary at the end, but to actually break it down into smaller chunks and look at the anatomy of forming sentences then into paragraphs then into a full paper, that actually makes sense and is applicable to other things and not just the paper in front of me. For example, certain circumstances led me to taking this English course during my last year of college but looking back now, I’m sort kicking myself by doing it so late. I probably could have got a better grade on a couple here and there, but instead more on the lines of physically learning how to write an educational paper.

This topic of conversation has been thrown around a lot lately, and in Sherry Turkle’s article, she brings up a phrase from a mentor that I found somewhat puzzling. “The talking trades” (346). In one way, “talking trades” could be taken as someone who is being paid to for the spread of their information: a professor, a lawyer, or a psychiatrist. You absolutely should be a qualified and knowledgeable “talker” in one of these professions. But, what about other scenarios, why is it that communication is a fundamental aspect to nearly every profession we have, yet so many people do not apply their skills in that way? Turkle continues to mention that trust has a major playing factor in this, stating that “after trust has been established, when a researcher’s notebook has been closed, when people who only a few minutes earlier had been ‘participants’ in ‘your study’ realize that there is something in this for them. Your questions become their questions as well. A conversation begins.” (346-7). I find that very intriguing that only when something pulls a person into a topic, then and only then will they be at full, or mostly at full, attention within the communication. It’s almost as if people think they might not have what it takes to be apart of a different classification or group just because they may not be directly involved in the first part of the action. Maybe they haven’t learned enough about feeling comfortable in their own shoes when talking about certain ideas. Maybe the engagement isn’t there and only an exterior projection of feelings and attitudes is seen. But Turkle wraps that idea around the leverage that someone who holds a certain amount of power over students specially. She talks about professors “being able to help students learn to ask questions and be dissatisfied with easy answers” (347).

There most certainly needs to be more conversation about the conversation within the classroom, but where does it begin? Is it all on the professor, or do the students need to be leading the charge? A conversation is the only thing that holds us here in the physical world. One way or another, conversation between humans still hold a power that a text or an email just can not recreate, it the way we interact, the way we visualize, and the way we sense each other in person is what makes a conversation great. Justified by what that conversation is about shouldn’t matter, that will change day to day, but it is how we see each other and the way we use that to better ourselves should be held to our own standards.

Works Cited

Turkle, Sherry. “The Empathy Diaries.” The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir, Penguin Press, New York, New York, 2022, pp. 343–353.