Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age
Book by Sherry Turkle
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Search complete. 10 mentions across 8 episodes found for "Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age".
Sep 30, 2026
Sherry TurkleGUEST
Well, I have two responses.
Sherry TurkleGUEST
The first is that one of the stories I tell is when I was finishing a book called Reclaiming Conversation, which was about that we were losing when we're texting, not talking.
Sherry TurkleGUEST
We were losing this desire.
Sherry TurkleGUEST
And also we were de-skilling ourselves and being able just to face to face talk to each other.
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In Europe in the 1700s, coffee houses were sources of coffee but also conversation.
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As the MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle points out in her 2016 book, Reclaiming Conversation, many people went to coffeehouses specifically to have rich, deep, sometimes even confrontational discussions.
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She quotes the British essayist and politician Joseph Addison, who wrote in 1714, "...I have taken a particular care never to be of the same opinion with the man I conversed with." Contrast this with how, some 300 years later, I engage with my local coffeehouse, Starbucks.
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I open the app at home and order a latte, then whirl my Honda through the drive-thru and collect my drink from an employee, who says, have a nice day.
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Turkle said that unlike texting or emailing, face-to-face conversation builds empathy.
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We experience the emotion of conversation from within our bodies.
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In her book, she points to a study in which researchers compared college friends who communicated face-to-face and by video chat, audio chat, and online instant messaging.
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in-person conversation led to the most emotional connection, she writes, and online messaging led to the least.
Andrew KeenHOST
I'm sure you can all guess who that guest was, the very, very famous, distinguished Sherry Turkle, whose 2011 book, Alone Together, why we expect more from technology and less from each other, is and remains one of the most prescient books warning us about the impact of technology on our social, cultural, political, economic lives.
Andrew KeenHOST
She remains an MIT professor, and she's also written a number of best-selling books, which she's been on the show to talk about, including 2015 follow-up, Reclaiming Conversations, and then a wonderful autobiography called The Empathy Diaries, what she calls a memoir.
Andrew KeenHOST
And Sherry Turkle, I'm thrilled, is back with a book that came out yesterday.
Andrew KeenHOST
It's called, appropriately enough, artificial intimacy, who we become when we talk to machines.
Ginny YurichHOST
Sh- her books are quoted in every book, e- every book.
Ginny YurichHOST
Reclaiming Conversation, you see it.
Ginny YurichHOST
You See It Alone Together, and then I also have Life On The Screen.
Ginny YurichHOST
I have The Second Self and the Empathy Diaries, which is your memoir.
Kara SwisherHOST
My guest today is Sherry Turkle, a leading expert on how humans relate to digital objects.
Kara SwisherHOST
She's the founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, and has written a number of best-selling books, including Alone Together, Reclaiming Conversation, and The Empathy Diaries.
Kara SwisherHOST
Her latest book is Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines, which is out September 29th.
Kara SwisherHOST
I think Sherry is one of the greatest researchers in this area.
Sherry TurkleGUEST
Because with social media, you see companies struggling to keep you at the screen, focused at the screen, not getting up, and I wrote several books about why that really was bad for us.
Kara SwisherHOST
Mm-hmm.
Sherry TurkleGUEST
Life on the Screen I wrote, Reclaiming Conversation I wrote, Alone Together.
Sherry TurkleGUEST
I was trying to find ways to communicate to people that this was not good for individuals.
Michael HortonHOST
Any quote from Sherry Turkle is I'm going to like.
Michael HortonHOST
MIT professor, her book, Reclaiming Conversation, say, Turkle's research revealed the ways social media has made us less able to handle criticism.
Michael HortonHOST
The rise of online identity construction has made people both hungrier for affirmation and more fragile in the face of disagreement.
Michael HortonHOST
Can you
Sam ColeHOST
That's a, that's a mouthful, actually.
Sam ColeHOST
[laughs] She's a New York Times bestselling author of multiple books, including Alone Together, Reclaiming Conversation, Empathy Diaries, and her latest book, Artificial Intimacy.
Sam ColeHOST
It comes out September twenty-ninth.
Sam ColeHOST
This is my heavily dog-eared, highlighted, uh...
Sherry TurkleGUEST
And I wrote a book, the next book, about what seemed to me to be a more dangerous threat, which was social media, texting, not talking.
Sherry TurkleGUEST
I called it Reclaiming Conversation.
Sherry TurkleGUEST
It was about the need to talk, not text.
Sherry TurkleGUEST
But then, during the pandemic...