HUFFINGTON
09.15.13
WILLIAM B. PLOWMAN/NBC/NBC NEWSWIRE/GETTY IMAGES
THE BIG QUESTIONS
Institute of Technology clinical
psychologist Sherry Turkle, who
studies the impact of technology
on social relations, examined how
hyperconnected-ness has created
relationships where we have the
“illusion of companionship” without the “demands of friendship.”
In other words, we are moving
toward a way of life that discourages the kinds of conversations
that defined and sustained Cherkasova and Kornilov’s friendship.
“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,” said Turkle, who has
spent the three years interviewing dozens of people from various
walks of life about what they talk
about with friends and how they
do it for an upcoming book called
Reclaiming Conversation. “These
conversations are what college
students are missing, they’re
what people at work are missing,
they’re what we’re all missing.”
In the midst of this shift, the
American university system remains an oasis of sorts, a place
where the Big Questions are freely
and fiercely debated — in no small
“... WE NO LONGER HAVE THAT
KIND OF GROUP OF WRITERS
WIDELY DISCUSSING HOW YOU
MEASURE —ANew
LIFE.
”
York Times columnist David Brooks
part because many students are
not yet dealing with the pressures
of work and family. But there’s
a shift on American campuses,
too. Just seven percent of graduates major in the humanities, like
philosophy and literature, while
majors in largely career-oriented
fields have increased as more