Have Smartphones Killed the Art of Conversation? (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Not quite, but it's certainly more than a blip in the cultural history of communication: in 2017, for the first time, the number of voice calls -- remember, those things you did with your actual voice on your actual phone -- fell in the UK. Meanwhile, internet addiction keeps growing, presumably because we haven't quite worked out what to do with all those hours we're saving on talking.

More than three-quarters (78%) of British adults own a smartphone, and we check them on average every 12 minutes. That adds up to 24 hours a week online via our phones -- much of that time swallowed up by modern-style chat on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, with some left over for texting. It has taken a toll on talking, sure, but few smartphone users might claim to feel less connected as a result.

Now, the idea of ringing someone for "a chat" has a quaint, retro quality. I can, and will, talk you under the table, but phone calls are a luxury usually reserved for about five people: my mum, my sister, two best friends and my editor, obviously. Even then, I'm rubbish at picking up. Much is made about smartphones leading to dumber conversation -- amid claims that the art of chatter has been lost. Arguably, however, conversation has simply been rebooted and reconfigured. Take the myriad ways in which we can and do communicate now. It's a given that I will spend an embarrassing portion of my day glued to a screen (It's work!) and much of that will be chatting (again, it's work!).

Comments

Means to an End

[novakyu]

I don't know, have typewriters killed the art of penmanship?

People who lose the sight of the "end" (that is, maintaining a relationship with people you love) for the "means" (particular mechanisms by which you do it) annoy me. There are harms done by smartphones, but "killing the art of conversation" isn't one of them.

Re:Modding killed conversation at /.

[mccalli]

Rubbish. Moderation made Slashdot. It's what allowed the conversation to stand out from usenet. First Digg and later Reddit copied it, with the Reddit founders explicitly stating they were copying and aiming at Slashdot (their 10th anniversary podcast).

The difference isn't moderation, it was that the other sites evolved to allow moderation for all. Digg added conversation for all with user posting. Reddit then added subdivision - the subreddit idea. Digg learned this the hard way - when they took away user moderation, they collapsed and Reddit became the beneficiary.

Whether it's for good or ill, who knows? It's different. I'm active on Slashdot, and Reddit. I was vaguely active on Digg but more a lurker than anything else. Slashdot still mostly stays with on topic conversation and hasn't devolved into the predictability of the Reddit response, but then again on Reddit I can talk about a wider amount of things and post my own questions to smaller audience that's just about the topic at hand. There's room in the world for both.

graph

[Tom]

I'd like to paint a graph here, maybe one day, slashdot?

With the invention of technology, things become possible that were not before, and things become easier. People certainly wrote less when it meant putting chisel and hammer to stone. They certainly wrote more when clay tablets were invented, and more still with modern writing tools (papyrus I'll leave open to discussion).

Then there is a tipping point. At some point, technology becomes too convenient and too fast and depth is lost. Certainly when meeting someone meant travelling for days, you would make the most of that meeting. Now if you forgot something you can just recall. So there is less incentive to be thorough, but also less need.

However, a certain amount of depth is necessary to get to anything meaningful. A meme is not a philosophical discourse. Aphorisms have their place and always had, but they should be the result of a long, in-depth discussion.

This is not smartphone-specific. In management today, thin-slicing, the bullshit-bingo term for cutting through the crap, getting to the core of the problem fast, is one of the most vital skills. But you can not spend your entire day thin-slicing. Some problems actually are complicated and require taking into account all the small details. Knowing when to use thin-slicing and when to sit down and do a proper analysis is what differentiates good managers from great managers.

The same with conversations. There are many moments were a short back-and-forth on the phone or in text does the job. When you are just reconnecting with someone, you don't need the full details of their day. "What's up?" is exactly the level of conversation needed. But if someone needs a life advice, or when a serious relationship needs saving, or a mourning friend needs a shoulder, cutting to the core quick and applying a band-aid doesn't do it, and you still need that skill of long, deep conversation. In person, by voice or by text doesn't matter.

Smartphones, and that is their downside compared to other technology, don't really allow for that, they are designed for the short, fast interaction. I cannot imagine writing even this comment on a phone, much less a deep-meaning letter. Even for voice communication, for some reason, looking back, I've had longer conversations on landline phones than on mobile phones, despite the convenience factor that would suggest the opposite. There just is something in the technology that gently guides it toward the shallow, quick, the way post-it notes or index cards make you write shorter notes than a full-size notebook, even if you have enough of them that a novel would fit before you run out.