Real Talk

The art of conversation, like any art, combines practiced skill, style, and a certain elegance of delivery. Thirty years after the invention of the world wide web, it is evident that this art has but a tenuous online presence.

The digital age of texting has not ushered in a renaissance of brilliant conversation. Instead, social media has created a stupefying disconnect resulting in a poverty of nuance and decorum.

While some connoisseurs of conversation have adapted, as seen with cleverly crafted tweets, scroll to the comment section, and find swarms of frightfully ill-thought-out replies. It is as if “thinking before you speak” has not made it into the texting sphere.

Social media has become a world where shorthand shock value is valued over meaning. Elegant conversation has been reduced to a meme to be laughed over. Even more concerning, digital natives aren’t cognizant of the conversational skills they lack.

Return to Reality

Without practice, the art of conversation is lost

Philosphical Cummunications

by dancer Hillary Sukhonos.

Generation Z and Millenials are boldly building our world, inviting an epidemic of one-sided conversations trapped in a vacuumous echo chamber. A strong case can be made for digital natives to return to real life interactions, preferably with those fluent in body language, gesture, tone, timing. With time, perhaps, dignified conversation can make a comeback or at least bleed into the digital sphere. Otherwise, technology will continue to be a poor substitute. For example, texting while useful for speedy notifications, is a disastrous main conversation medium. How I would trade in a good conversation over texting anyday!

Although new audio-discussion platforms like Clubhouse are fast appearing on the digital landscape. The opportunity to converse with others is again eclipsed by the middle man of a screen, microphones, and delay. I fear users will be so far removed from real life interactions that the art of conversation could be lost on an entire generation.

So, in the name of preservation of all things artful and pleasing, have a real life conversation today.