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 bo