Quite by accident rather than design, I came across a book that tells us what we know and yet does so in a particularly persuasive way.
What lends the book heft is the credibility of the author: Sherry Turkle is a clinical psychologist and professor of Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT. She specializes in human-technology interaction and has written extensively on technology’s problematic effects on human connection (‘Alone Together’ – now that is an interesting title! – was her earlier book).
The big lesson when we deal with people: reclaim human connection, partly through redeeming the lost art of face-to-face conversation. When we do not do that, what is lost is the capacity to be patient, to listen, to pay attention and to empathise. Conversation, says the author, is the most human - and humanising - thing that we do....Conversation cures.
A reviewer of the book wrote this beautiful sentence (in the Frontline): In our current context (2025), this optimism feels almost absurdly radical. The idea that people might actually listen to each other, seek understanding before being understood and recognise the humanity of those they disagree with has become more revolutionary than most actual revolutions.
QED.
This is not to suggest, I think, that humans were good at these traits earlier but we have, in a word, regressed: a 2010 study led by Prof Sara Konrath at the Univ of Michigan even quantified it to say that college students were (then, in 2010) 40% less empathetic than their equivalents from just a decade ago.
What does this mean?
A loss of ability to read human emotions, to listen and to sustain meaningful conversation.
Each of these is a stone in the foundation of negotiation. That matters.
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