LETTER FROM
THE EDITOR
ART STREIBER
The Big
Questions
I
N THIS WEEK’S issue, Jaweed Kaleem
looks at the state of
American conversation around “the big questions,”
as students return to college campuses across the country.
In dining halls and dorm rooms,
as students come together with
people of vastly different backgrounds and perspectives, they’ll
continue the typical college traditions of late nights, long conversations and self-discovery, Jaweed
writes. And when they graduate,
they will face a challenge much
steeper than any college exam or
doctoral dissertation — carrying
that spirit of inquiry with them
into the real world.
In other words, after graduation,
what happens to those discussions?
As clinical psychologist Sherry
Turkle puts it, “we have stripped
away so many of the conditions
that make conversations like these
flourish. And the condition that
makes it flourish, in many cases,
is the uninterrupted full attention
to each other.”
Technology, in part, is to blame.
The more connected we are to
our devices, the more we engage
HUFFINGTON
09.15.13
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