The institute for public knowledge. You are in the kind of annex space that we are hosting at this evenings event and we do a lot like this at the part that tries to take ideas and intellectuals that might otherwise spend too much time inside the ivory tower and project them out into the world, so we aim to generate conversations between Bank University world and have a lot to say to one another and we do many events like this and urge you to get on the mailing list if youre not already a part of the community. So tonight is especially exciting to me for many reasons. One is that our distinguished guest tonight was hugely hopeful to me and my increasingly well known, operator when we were writing the book modern romance over the last couple of years we drew heavily from the foundation of her knowledge and she said so many things that were interesting to us but she told us a whole lot about conversation and technology and things to look out for. I will always remember one of the most amazing experiences that we had when we were writing our book. She really cute us into this event. We were doing a bunch of focus groups and we did a focus group at the Upright Citizens Brigade and we wanted to talk to people in different generations who were involved in relationships so they made an invitation to the people who are mostly following these events and you are welcome to come to this kind of focus group show as a strange thing we did and basically the tickets were free or pretty close to free and all you have to do to get him in spring your parents or grandparents and its so huge numbers of people did. After all they wanted to see them and then we had a little but of a surprise when they came in and said we want the Younger Generation on one side of the auditorium and the older generation on the other side so we separated the groups and right before we went up on stage we were standing behind the curtain and saw the most incredible thing on the left side of the stuff where the older generations were, all these total strangers were talking to each other. Do you have any idea who this guy is in on the right side, everybody was in their phone. Every single person. It was a strange thing to see that there was nothing that was happening in the conversation and how its changed. If you talk to people on the right side of the stage they probably would have told you that they were involved in an intense conversation but it looked different and it felt different and we didnt go deep on this issue. We told the story really quickly partly because there was no reason to. We know she would come and knock it out of the park. So tonight we are here for conversation about the reclaiming conversation. We are not just letting cherie in the Public Lecture instead we have the hard work of the conversations of it is going to be hard and pleasurable at the same time, partly because we have maria here as well who is a Dear Colleague and friend and also the professor of media culture and communications here at nyu. She is the former editor of american quarterly, which is the official journal of the american studies association, and she is the author of several acclaimed books including tourists of history memory, consumerism and American Culture and entangled memories, the vietnam war, the aides put epidemic and the coeditor with Douglas Thomas burkett just technological visions the hopes and fears that shape new technology. So obviously drawing on the things on those objects especially the latter because shes here with the guests you are here to hear from as well. She is truly one of todays most important influential intellectuals. At mit she is the author of several landmark books cited by people that continue to have influence over people in many different fields today. Thereve been too many books for me to name i will just list some of the most wellknown. Life on the screen, simulation and discontent, alone together and of course the book that we are all here to discuss tonight, reclaiming conversation the power of talk in the digital age and i should tell you we are selling the book as well and we take pride having booked events where the vendor leaves with no books to carry home so that means you are here for free but have to do your part at the end of the night. The professor is unique for bringing a psychological as well as a sociological frame of reference for study of digital culture. She has real Historical Perspective on these issues because she has been doing work in this area since the days of the first personal computers and has observed the ark arc of the culture development. There are some observers who say the professor has changed her mind because she went from being Pro Technology at some point in her career to being antitechnology but if he read her book or listen to her closely you will note that it is a caricature of her thoughts. She is not antitechnology. What she is is pro conversation pro facetoface interaction and shes here, actually all of us are here to have a good conversation tonight. So what i ask of you is that if possible, put down your device, turn it off, just an hour or so, lift up your heads, dont let us see the top of your head. [laughter] and join me in welcoming the professors and then after they spent some time speaking with each other, join them in conversations as well. One thing i will say as preliminary to have cspan here filming tonight so this event will be broadcast with that means is when we get to the questions and answers i will come up and ask everyone with a question to come to the microphones of the people at home can hear as well and so with that let me ask you again to welcome the guests. . I was rendering the other day that ive known you for 20 years and even though we havent seen each other that often each time weve seen each other over the years, we have had a really great conversation and so i think actually the place i want us to begin thinking and talking is about what is a good conversation. Like what makes a meaningful conversation and what is the conversation that you are in your book asking us to have, not you and me about us. That is a wonderful question and i think that it is the french of course if you are thinking about children and parents and developmentally that makes a what makes a great conversation because i think that a great deal of my book is talking about the dangers, the clear and present danger of parents not having conversations with their children. Before i answer in general about what our conversations are that like both of us out and up and buy a think they are such great conversations i just want to sort of make a plug for the developmental importance of parents and children meeting face to face and eye to eye since ive just become more and more aware of parents texting at breakfast and dinner and the children tugging at the needs of parents who are really not paying attention to them, waving to them at the jungle gym look at me, look at me and can talk to them cutting vacation short because the vacation spot doesnt work, there are slings for moms to breastfeed and text because they want hold a little place for the night ipad. [laughter] it makes us forget what we know about life and what parents really know about life is that they need to look at their children and make eye contact with their children. Thats how you make a person. One of the most meaningful conversations i had writing this book was with a man who said he had an 11yearold daughter and when she was a baby she gave her a bath and during the baath he would talk to her, play with her, sing with her and in those conversations he knew that he had formed a kind of bedrock of their relationship and now we have a 2yearold and when he gives her a bath he puts her in the bathtub and makes sure the water is low such doesnt get into trouble come he puts on a seat on the toilet and does email and says i know its not right but thats what im doing now. Writing a book about the conversation now i think that this technology is making us forget what we know about lifes what a conversation does, because after all we dont live in a silent world where talking to each other on a conversation is where people make themselves vulnerable whether there is a certain spontaneity and the conversation goes where it will end you allow it to go where it will ask the opposite of when i was talking about the conversation with a young man who said he never likes to have a conversation and i said whats wrong with conversation and he said i was told you whats wrong with conversation that takes place in real time and you never know what youre going to say. [laughter] so define a conversation im talking about is the opposite of that. Its open ended where now you can ask me anything where i allow myself to let you tell me something. So thats like the issue of trust. I want your book is about the old themes we have today to avoid facetoface conversation whether its with a professor or the family or the romantic relationship, so if we are thinking about the state involved in that kind of facetoface conversation, i was thinking earlier that these are urgent times, and i dont think theres anyone who doesnt feel like we do from one crisis to the next, we are all afraid. There is a sense of urgency to everything and i would argue that this is less urgent. Theres a sense of urgency and the material is probably the most urgency. We are talking about the kind of vulnerability that we are there to express politically that produces more violence or we are talking about the kind of vulnerability that you are pointing to, which is how to have a very basic level a conversation that isnt yet scripted so i wonder how you would think about that in relation to the question of vulnerability. That leaves me with a very profound political mission. She said im glad i dont have any controversial opinions because on the internet, everything is public and everything is kept forever and that is not a comfortable place to express yourself and i think our sense of vulnerability and everything being kept. I dont have any controversial opinion. Thats very different. I just want to note from saying i have about as controversial opinions im really angry that the internet is a place where i really got to think about how i will express them. Shes saying im glad i dont have any controversial opinions. In other words, the silencing is so profound that it happened before she even allows herself the opinion. So i think that we are so afraid at how we feel if it can silence us that really the most basic level and i think that goes very deep. Thinking about the technologies you have been studying it for so long part of what we are always dealing with is the way in which new technology and i think social media pushes us even further amplifies existing activities. So im thinking you describe so any of these contexts in which people try to have a conversation with someone whos on their phone. We have a lot of the pre media versions of that through the conversations at the Cocktail Party where the person that youre talking to is scanning the room kind of thing, and so i guess part of my question is how do we make sense of what is different here, beyond amplification and degree. I think that theres kind of a line in the stands saying here. Research shows if you put a phone on the table between you and the person you are having lunch with, two things happen. The conversation becomes march revealed coming at you and the other person feel less connection with each other which makes sense because it symbolizes that at any moment, you could be interrupted. At any moment you could be interested. So, the trigger for my getting involved but it was the right thing to write about really was the development of always on and always on you technology where our attention is always divided and i think that is the triggering technology that we dont know how to manage yet. So im actually quite the urgency isnt that we give up on our phones at all. Our phones are here to say. Technology that allows us to be always in touch with each other is going to stay. But we have not developed the social or morays that makes sense. So the book means look back pete because technology is a really seductive media but i would never say to you hold on, give me just a second i want to just catch two paragraphs of madame. No matter how selective the buck we havent developed ways of being with our phone that make sense and i think that it is a question that whether or not wearing it as a watch just this afternoon i was with someone that wears as a watch and i said is your attention more focus on the people that you are with. Is that health and healthy and moving forward in progress or is not not . Do you think that it also has a kind of moral tone . I am trained in a psychodynamic tradition to think that empathy is key to our humanity being quite simply my ability to put myself in your shoes and from your point of view and your ability to do the same thing for me. And i could have said you could be able to do that and theres been a 40 decline in College Students in every way we know how to measure this a 40 decline of College Students in the capacity and in the past 20 years in middle schools all over the country ive been able to observe a real problem in students ability to put just quite simply as early as middle school put themselves at the place of the other. So its natural that this should happen if people dont practice doing that thing where empathy is brett whereby talking. I like to say that conversation is the talking to her because you learn empathy by being here, getting feedback from we are empathy machines and know how to do that. It brings me back to my initial question. So it is talking in its eye contact and it is the presence but its also something unscripted. My being attentive to you telling me where youre going. So its a kind of collaborative aspect. Saying i am comfortable with this because i cant perfectly craft my words and i dont want to be in that office with that professor so im choosing my words carefully and i know most of us have had pretty difficult experiences with tone of email as it is classically known as the medium of misunderstanding. But that sense of the unscripted mess is scary and potentially making one more vulnerable to ones own feelings and a sense of self. Its interesting that depend on the self sense because one of the messages i became a look on conversation with a chapter on the academic in me saying what i want you to take away from all of this this is the thing that conversation begins with the capacity for solitude and there is a stunning study that shows that College Students when asked to sit alone without their devices for six minutes will begin to administer electroshock rather than continue to sit alone with their thoughts that we were losing the capacity for solitude because were so used to having the ability to just go with our phones. Boredom is one of the most important thing for a child to develop the capacity for boredom when you are bored your brain isnt bored its actually laying down the basis for a stable sense of self. There are baby bouncers now but have a slot for an ipad or tablet or phone. These moments, at these moments, these are moments when your child needs to be born and learn to have solitude. So we are losing these capacities that are essential for the kind of conversations we need to develop in that capacity. The other day someone complained to me on their phone device and i thought okay. But there is a context in which our alternatives are not necessarily at the deeper level of conversation. And so, just thinking about that question of downtime walking, thinking, i was reading your book thinking that effect i have a tendency to listen to podcasts now when i walk the dog. Right, ive taken that experience and maybe im learning more about science. [laughter] there is a loss of air and so there and so many of the students i interviewed said. Some in my generation never have to think about again. I will never have to be bored. I will never have to have a moment of downtime. And i think that this is not necessarily progress. I mean, i would argue that increasing solitude is not happy that students have for six minutes and then literally were jumping out of their skin waiting to listen to their podcast. And i just want to see one of the things, was i would love to have questions and for you to discuss later is to researchers who did the research on the College Students 40 decline and over the past 20 years, when they finished that research it was very depressing. Even they were shocked by that number. Thats extraordinary. Its shutting up all over the richer and the next thing they turn to us to start writing and that he asked for the iphone. And that is a very hot question in my business. On the borderline between technology. What about using technology to increase our sense of empathy. Is that the path . Can you imagine all these kids who are not talking to each other who dont have practice now looking down at their phones to do exercises . Part of me welcomes and embraces anything that will help us with this. And part of me says we are the empathy app. Lets look up and talk to each other. In your research for the project was there anything you found it was a creative way to use technology to words conversation in other words do we have to turn away from that technology to have those conversations . Theres a million ways to use technology to enhance conversations with think of television. Look at the bum rap of television got to do. Its a wonderful example of how everything depends on social context. I watched game of poems with my daughter and it is a contact sport. [laughter] because we are hugging, my panties in her bosom because i cant dare to see i mean, there is conversation. I cant believe they are killing off. Its an honestly social come into. There is nothing wrong with television and i grew up in a family that watched television and talked back to the television and peace to watch this thing called at the Molly Goldberg show about a jewish family in new york he and my grandfather would be talking about how he would do everything differently and help all the mistakes they were making and how the entire family watched it. It is all highly social technology for my family. If everybody puts on their phone and goes to their room thats a different thing. So it is a social and psychological choice so that is the message of reclaiming conversation is that you can use technology and to create social mores around technology. You dont need to text after dinner or a place for texting and movie watching it can be a place for conversation in the car. Thats one of my i consider it as ground zero in the fight to reclaim conversation. We are going to have another one of our marathon discussions and i will convince you. Youve been in conversation for the last two months. So, talking about the book are there other newer things youve learned, what have you learned in the conversations that youve had . Iceland i described the book as a book of unhappy camper because one of the messages into surprises in the research is that people are not happy with the sort of social mores that are developed around the phone. So this guy who gives his daughter a bath and who is doing his email he feels guilty. Its not just that he feels guilty. He feels like hes missing out. Im not sure that it captures how we feel. I think there is a send of love. Its really kind of the authors choice. My favorite line in the book is Technology Makes us forget what we know about life. We know something about life and this technology is so seductive it makes us i would like to say it makes us peace promises like if you can be wherever you want to be coming you can always be heard and put your attention wherever you want it to be. Theres always somebody to listen that is so seductive that we allow ourselves to forget about. On the road ive been hearing about stories of people forgetting about life but who feel they want to make a change and who somehow want to have an alternative to saying im addicted to. When they think about it coming he can leave the phone out of the bathroom when he gives her a bath. Hes not that effective. Its just sort of easier not to. I want to ask you to say a little bit about your critique of the kind of better than nothing argument. This is the only planted rumor [laughter] you have various examples in the book im thinking of the public robotic animals are given by thinking about other examples, too mac. I read my kids a book on face time because im not there, so that isnt nothing. Its better than me not talking to them at all and for various reasons i cant be there into that kind of thing. But you have a pretty strong philosophical arguments against the better than nothing. Hispanic let me just lay this out because maybe i thought i would ask because i feel so strongly about this. Uart about to be hit even as we speak. A group of products are being released. There is hello barbie for kids produced by hasbro cats for holders just to pick two of the things they love to hate. This is the beginning of many more to come objects. They will be for children and seniors which are the two sort of vulnerable groups that are there to be given robotic companions. And essentially these objects, and i study these for many years theres a chapter of the cleaning conversation. Unaccustomed for me they do become something of a moralist because i really think that this is where we lose our humanity. In the case of children a robot doll that says do you have a sister, i have a sister its hard being jealous of your sister. Tell me about how youre jealous of yours, i am jealous of mine. Lets dish. At that ball that ball has no empathy to give or teach a course that hasnt left the arc of a potential life. Its not empathy. You cant learn empathy. Its everything to put ourselves in the place of another. You cant learn that from a ball. And in the case of altars, with all the focus being on can you get an older person to talk to the stall yet you can get an older person to talk to a poll bowl but who is listening and this is where i think the argument of the conversation becomes a moral argument and that of the compact but we have between generations as we listen to each other and listen to each others stories and data that is the meaning that we transmit to each other and the argument for why we need these things is that again and again as i interview. We still need somebody to talk to and better than nothing. All of a sudden it starts to be better than any because it will always stay. There is a kind of denial. To have a pet or have attachment to. Why were you talking to your daughter. Why shouldnt it be you talking to daughter instead of your dolls. She needs to know to be there and not break down and fall apart to hear it and if its not toxic and terrible to have strong feelings about another person and express them. If if they are things that are happy for their kids to talk to. My kid likes to ask siri things that she cant quite answer. Default to marry me and i just want to be friends. It is my feeling about this that comes from really this is where we live in our relationship. But its now in the smartest way is coming to convince us that these state relationships are the way to go and just so happened its a big month for the marketing of the relationships and i want to start a conversation of that and be part of the conversation. The pre christmas conversation. This is the part for your conversation. Remember like i said before because of the microphone situation and the cameras, we cant have you asked questions from your seat so if you could line up behind the microphone right up there that would be great and he will ask if you could really try to ask a question, maybe i want a little bit of a preamble that we are waiting for questions. Thank you. [inaudible] here is my question. We talk about people that want to have a conversation, and there are two problems, two questions. What you want to discuss and who could discuss it with. The problem is if you dont work in the academic environment or the cultural. I had this idea. Articles from weeks and days, the point is [inaudible] a conversation on articles from weeklies and daily. Its a great work of journalism. On the other hand, people you can discuss it with. The trouble is there is no place to find them. So i think about the discussions that are not limited to a single magazine because it does appear if someone sent me an article and so my question is first of all is it a good idea at all and second, how to make people know. Is it good or bad and Second Coming out to make people needed in the world. Well, im going to say its an idea that needs to be not only entered [inaudible] i think that the idea is every kind of meet up for the idea of getting people together i think that this is here again but i wasnt joking about is that there are already so many and this i think is a wonderful use of the internet and social media is as a place to convene people to come together. I would imagine that most of the people here found out about coming here by something online. I did. I was told exactly where to show up by looking at my mail is. I think that we learned in reclaiming my talk about conversation and i talk about the wonderful thing about public conversation is that we learn to be better at talking to each other and how important it is to have public conversations with people we disagree with and not just the people we agree with. So i think your idea is sound. When you made the comment about Television Activity and also a couple other things like posters over the disappearance of childhood and i also thought of the century of in touch with who we are and i imagine the majority of us but i wanted to know was what role if any did your portion play in this book . She is one of those people i met when i was a very young scholar and too deeply and encourage and inspire me and so neil postman is all over everything ive ever shes all over this book and my approach to the world. I dont think theres a i remember going to a retreat with him when i had just published the first in a series of books i wrote about identity and technology and at that time people were liked by dugas and he said just keep at it. We are in neil postmans old world and his old office and not to be heretical but [inaudible] lucky you. But there is this other line of thinking that people who challenge pieces like who actually works in this department or at the Annenberg School who say actually there is a way of consuming media that was passive or insular. We used to sit together as a family in front of the tv. Its interesting to share you talk about tv in that way because the buck the whole story was we are watching tv together as a family and we are not engaging. Now we fantasize about watching tv with family. Its like a nice family story you told about watching a show with your daughter because he didnt you didnt have your own individual device. But there is a lineup line up in the debates that says look, people are using these devices to engage in all kinds of Creative Conversations that they might not have with their families. They are finding a subcultural community and they can feel very deep and people who might otherwise feel lonely or estranged from the people around them are finding ways to build the communities and they are using these technologies in smarter ways. Im not asking this because i think that its established but i wonder how what is your conversation with them like . My conversation is very lively and productive. I find that when people do use this technology [inaudible] when people use this technology to meet up and thats why i was trying to find a way to say yes, public conversation, meet up. When people use technology and when they are isolated and in situations of isolation and defined to become less isolated and is better yet to meet in person and to form communities, i am all in. I am pro conversation into that as where my work and there is overlap. And i think think thats the that the difference is that i also find something happening in parallel to that which is that when people are facetoface already together, they take up their out their phones and other work a conversation. So im all in if you are isolated where you are and you are using your technology to find people you can connect with and better yet if you come together at conventions and studies or however you make it happen to end your isolation. But the paradox is and im studying a situation that i find painful, poignant and more and more comments which is we come together, we are at the table together, a family together and we are each alone on our phones. Thank you for a conversation. I feel genuinely guilty and they cut i cut off my iphone for all of this. I want to ask you about two phenomenons. One is the helicopter appearance, which actually makes a deal that maybe we could attention more to our children than any previous generation. And not even parents told me about how they spoke to them are never even saw them so that is number one [inaudible] the kind of mind that isnt so great on multipurpose turns. Let me answer that first question. I find a tremendous paradox because i was able to study families over time and thats one advantage i have is being able to study so many families over time that families become helicopter parents actually often after their children have left. And helicopter when the children are in college or the children are out of their sites like at school they become crazy attentive to whats happening when the child is at school and those same parents who are attentive to what their child is doing at school were texting at the dinner and not talking to their kids. So, yes they are in conflict, but that conflict is to be noted and studied. But its not as though those two things are not happening at the same time. Next question. Now i can focus. Tasking, thats another big thing thats very. Second phenomenon. It seems like everyone has this idea of creation and innovation and it seems that generation is very much the rights might even be writing more and doing stuff that requires some alone time even though they are not alone even if they are multitasking it seems they are resulting in ideas and so i was wondering if from my perspective i wanted to know how does that fit in the idea . Im encouraged if thats how you if thats how it unfolds. From my perspective as a college professor, im interested to hear from others because there are other people in the room who could comment on this, my students struggle to accomplish things by doing one thing at a time and they get things done. They only do one thing at a time and our attention degrades for every new task and when we multitask but the brain plays a trick on us and we have a feeling that we are Getting Better and better as the app more tasks and as we are getting worse and worse. So, you feel more and more like a master of the universe as intact you are doing worse and worse at everything youre doing. Its really a vicious circle. So i actually think that in this quest for creativity and ideas and bringing things to completion and creative in order to go deep, and inhabits needs to be learned and learned deeply. So that is my you mentioned in the book, and ive hurt a lot of people talk about this but in order to write, one must turn off the wifi and facebook and must not answer emails and that we have programs that help us to do that so there is this sense that i hear from people a lot that they have to think very seriously about the relationship to writing in a way that forces them to deliberately turning off distractions which are on the screen. Thats a big thing that lots of teachers of younger kids talk about if you are writing a paper and you are doing your research, you are being told constantly that the by the other parties of your screen. In the book i interview 14yearolds whose schools have basically shutdown libraries but the entire curriculum on Apple Computers or tablets, not just apples covet a giveaway program of a tablet to every student the curriculum has been put on the tablet and [inaudible] these students are printing out their assignments because they cant concentrate if there doing the work on the template. Theres one student when a young woman says to me, shes 14, and she says later they close the library . It was a good place to read. And what is the answer, why did we close the library . And this is such a good example of theres nothing wrong and if its everything creative about tablet. Theres so much great stuff on them it isnt the best medium for a 14yearold to do all their work on the tablet and here are these kids printing out their assignments so they wont be distracted by social media. So thats the way to think about the beginning of the question. What i love about your response is that they were focused on the children were every professor and writer and grownup person i know feels like the machine is kicking their asses because its hard for people to focus in general on the thing thats in front of them so that if my colleagues on the whole using it because they know they have to. But you go to a faculty meeting and everybody has their phone out because we have reached this moment where people feel that basically unless youre with the person youve just fallen in love with like that week [laughter] even then, i am not so sure. The odds are after a few minutes, the thing that might be happening on your phone is more exciting and a lowering them the thing thats going on in front of you. And thats a difficult challenge for all of us people to be in and actually so that interaction like me to think about where you end your book with some of your ideas about how we are good to break free of these technologies and how do we think about a way of focusing on the thing in front of us whether that is our work or our family. I think that is such a great, great question and final thought because essentially, you know, this idea when i took the gifts from the ferry and the genie and the idea that the phone as one of my students says its where the sweetness comes, you hear about all these good things. Theres a Television Program i watched with my grandfather about a millionaire and he would come and give a Million Dollars, he would choose someone and give them a Million Dollars to transform the lives of people. And people look to their phones for the next message. That is where the sweetness will come. The good news it even has a kind of feeling of solvation. Thats where the good news will come and i think that essentially, you know, what it is is getting back to look up and look at who youre with and begin the conversation, look up and look to your work. Begin the conversation with your work. Get some thinking in your solitude about realistically thinking what is it that you are looking for in the next message in here is the sort of psychological part of me speaking what is it that your trying to not think about because i think often as i interview people there is something they are trying to not think about when they are looking constantly at next message or hoping its the next message that will change their lives. What is it that they need changing and can you do it yourself without a. I have a hopeful message because i think that these are doable things because i think that its increasingly that children are the children are leading the way and in this book children lead the way because they are saying why did you close the library on me and i cant concentrate this way by did you close the library on me and they are saying i want to raise children not the way my parents raised me with phones that there but the way my parents think they are raising me with conversation in family time and i think those children are going to try to do that. But youre also challenging us to avoid conflict. Use a see learned from moments of fiction. The challenge of view of the world so there is the counterpart to that which isnt seeking the message but its also lets not avoid the difficulty that we perceive and other things in the unknown goal of the conversation. And in your self. Vulnerability means your vulnerability to know what youre about, running to your phone as a way to not think about yourself. Here is what we are going to do for the sake of getting more voices and conversations. I asked two of you to ask conversations back to back. You mentioned this at the beginning for children it was the pendulum may be swinging the other way for the ones who are in the game. The cversation is difficult to get rewording. How do you sort of fix that and teach people the models are not in the classroom. Where do you see that knowledge . I talked with school for seven years, so im very aware of how people use their phones and i would notice all the time you see people double tap on the home and refresh constantly and almost just automatic and the whole time they are saying this it contradicts some of what the report in the book that they are constantly saying they are bored. They are on these devices and they are getting their ego refreshed anyway or her constructiveness but they are always saying they are bored. So im wondering what are they actually saying when they are being surrounded by information and data but also saying they are bored . The im going to take that last one as just a wonderful piece of observation and future research i think that is a very profound statement that they are saying something i think so much of us feel about what is not nourishing about constantly refreshing my screen and why i am hopeful maybe i didnt put it in terms of not being guarded by a hopeful is that those kids who complained when they seemed to unlike their elders, thinking as recently as i grew up i thought the best ive ever get busted wrist radio. That was like my idea and bees kids have always lived with this continual refreshment and yet it isnt nourishing. When they go to a sleep away camp for five days. Empathy levels at the beginning of the camp had been suppressed in all the ways we know how to measure that ended in five days they five days they come back up and in my own research at sleep away camps. To talk about what was on the phone but on their mind. When they they dont have the ability to constantly refresh i think that is a very profound observation. Now for the question of what to do if you are in that. You are not in that where i see the hope. I think basically she read my 12 step program. But in the course of the book i do have many steps from many people their recovery if i may use that word begins at work. They may be on the conversation and a telephone calls. Many employers i spoke to because one of the main chapters of the books we didnt really talk about that today but i went to a lot of businesses and law firms can Software Companies to study the culture of conversation and many of them would see toomey people will not physical but if you talk to a young person and say did you talk to them with your voice, did you talk to them using your mouth . Because people are not wanting to talk and it doesnt mean they dont want to do their jobs. It is because theyre afraid to talk. People say i dont have practice in this and the way they put it was this was a young man at a software company. I dont have practice thinking on my feet. Looking for that matter for thinking on my feet, thinking on my toes. I cant think on my feet. Trying to capture this is very often in the workplace that people are mentor because to do their jobs need to talk and it turns out the conversation is good for the bottom line to do a good job in the workplace, you need to have conversations. You said you need a conversation to close the deal. But i have a lot of stories about people that turn to their parents and say you are posting on facebook looking out at the familiar faces and saying kids on their phones and older people talking to each other is very often the older people on their phones. Child to parent saying you are posting our family dinners on facebook. I just want to talk to you. I want to come to dinner in my sweatpants and not be posted on facebook and talk to you and people say stop googling at dinner i just want to talk to you. Stiglitz take a couple more questions and then we will do our best. You touched on part of my question very lightly. Because i am a woman of a certain age, im very curious about the role of gender and age in the ability to hold a conversation or inability in the folder ability and empathy in the development of empathy in being vulnerable. Thank you very of trying to look at this larger context do you find a parallel in the conversations that we are losing [inaudible] do you feel that there is a parallel or crossover . Its the ability to read history and to read a parallel study in his study of reading. Marianne is a scholar and every three years or so she went on vacation and said she couldnt read the book and said she had lost her capacity. The capacity to read something wrong which is kind of the brain rewiring itself for the stuff that we read all the time that is said so brilliantly in the shadows and not cannot be brought to public attention. Im on a tear about conversation and she is about reading and you cant develop a dialogue with the past in a complex way if youre not reading. So on the second point, yes. And on gender i didnt make gender the focus of my work, but i will say this that women ad a tremendous it wasnt as though in doing this study the women stood out as being conversationalist and the women were on their phones talking about the constant refreshing, talking about their need to go to a their troubles of conversation. Now it turns out other researchers have shown that women do social media leftparen video games and was there tremendous differences in what the women and men do when theyre online and as a whole other topic. But it wasnt as though women were exempt from the kind of taking up their phones during conversations facetoface that im talking about here. Lets take these two last questions and then i want to remind everyone that the professor has agreed to stick around and sign books afterwards. I work in religious education so we go out at the conversations but also have a critical conversation with god and theologically whether or not he enters this sociologically it puts us outside of ourselves and allows us to empathize what you think about on another. I was wondering if you encountered these traditions were religious communities in the conversations. Thank you for being sensitive to my brain. [laughter] i actually think that my upbringing as a jew is very present in my way of thinking about conversation. The book to me has a feeling i can only respond by saying so many people spoke to me about prayer and solitude and the book begins with a chapter on solitude and conversations of i discuss conversations with psychotherapy and a solitude and self reflection and there i was very influenced by religious traditions and the psycho traumatic conditions and thinking about how to engage the self and the conversation before you can engage other people. Yes. Final question. And the character of Career Services at the Journalism Institute [inaudible] but i wanted to find out the things you were talking about in trade to help the students get jobs and was there constantly but the two main skills that we need to have and you pointed out to be successful are conversations and empathy is one of these things weve been trying to input on the students. Do you have any suggestions for what we can do and tell the students in order to develop the skills and what we can do as a professors and the career counselors