Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age

That space—where you look up from writing and don’t know where to go or what to do next, where you sit at a red light, wait at the post office? Something lives in that space that’s being hurt and displaced by calling in the “elsewhere” of messages, news cycles, TikToks, and so on. A relationship to something as yet unknown and under formation is be... See more

I have been thinking a lot about the continued and increasing lack of importance being placed on the idea of conversation , things over the past few years can feel so transactional. Thing is, like everyone, I love the one-way form of conversation that exists via the abundance (and abundance of forms) of content that is out there that drives me to c... See more

Scrolling displaces observation, shuts out occasions for self-generated thought, silences out-of-the-blue invitations. Checking the phone reroutes the discomfort of blankness and emptiness. It stoppers authentic—often anxious—waiting. And, even more disturbing, scrolling narrows the field of my curiosity.

If I wake up and touch my phone, I’ve already lost hours. Not because I’m browsing social media for hours, but because the mind has already been agitated, made unquiet, and the context switch back into thoughtfulness can take the whole morning. In other words, the addict part of my brain takes over and contaminates my ability to be contemplative. I... See more