Psychologists have identified this as fear of conversation. People wear headphones as conversational avoidance devices. The internet connects us to the entire world, but it is a world bespoke, edited, deleted, sanitised. Doubt and debate become trivial because every statement can be instantly verified or denied by Google. There is no time for the thesis, antithesis, synthesis of Socratic dialogue, the skeleton of true conversation.
There is now apparently a booming demand for online conversation with robots and artificial voices. Mobiles come loaded with customised girlfriends. People turn to computerised dating advisers, even claim to fall in love with their on-board GPS guides. A robot seal can be bought to sit and listen to elderly people talk, tilting its head and blinking in sympathy.
We have, says Turkle, confused connection with conversation the illusion of companionship without the demands of relationship. Human friendship is rich, messy and complicated. It requires patience and tolerance, even compromise. As we push other people off into a world of question and answer, connection and information, friendship becomes ersatz virtuality.
In his history of conversation, Stephen Miller points out that most Americans are nowadays concerned more with improving their sex life than their conversation life. Even the phone is pass. Those who used to call a friend in trouble now send a text. Phone calls are to register urgency or shout anger, with corresponding loss of nuance and sensibility. From Mailer to Eminem, the modern cultural hero is expressionist. He or she has attitude, and to prove it uses the F-word as often as possible.
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