Learning the Art of Conversation

Why more conversations, and fewer texts, are good for your relationships and your emotional health

Not long ago, when out-of-town relatives would stay with me for the weekend, my favourite part of each visit happened after the kids went to sleep. We’d pour ourselves a wine and chat until nearly midnight, laughing about old memories and sharing new stories.

These days, the dynamic is completely different. The first adult who returns from bedtime duty doesn’t reach for the wine glasses; he parks himself on the couch and reaches for his smartphone. Just until the others show up, he tells himself.

One by one, everyone gathers where we used to regale each other with amusing anecdotes, but there’s silence instead of laughter as everyone checks email accounts, text messages and Facebook feeds.

We might eventually pour some wine and talk, but everyone keeps a smartphone in his or her lap the whole night, and the conversation is often interrupted with an alert that someone elsewhere has something (better?) to say. Whenever this happens, I yearn wistfully for the days when my relatives and I would focus all of our attention on each other and really connect.

My experience isn’t unique. More than half the people in the world have smartphones. In countries such as the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, the figure is more than 80 per cent. Phones really are everywhere.

Smartphone usage is so widespread that people like me – who value quality conversation – have become resigned to the fact that sometimes our companions prefer to use their devices instead of fully engaging with us. Today’s instant-gratification, shortattention-span lifestyle has trained people to seek new information at every moment, so for many people, face-to-face encounters aren’t as engaging as smart devices with constant news and updates. And relationships are suffering.

“Smartphones have become a safety blanket – whenever there’s a moment of potential boredom, people turn to their smartphones,” says psychology lecturer Daria Kuss, who studies smartphone usage. “Since the development of the first smartphones 15 years or so ago, that behaviour has been so normalised. Everyone has them.”

A Constant Distraction

Because smartphones can produce a never- ending stream of interesting things to look at, they often rival real-life companions.

“Phones communicate themselves,” says Oliver Bilke-Hentsch, a psychiatrist who studies internet addiction. “You don’t need a phone call from someone. The device itself shows you new information. You have to control yourself just to look.”

Nicole Gommers, 38, has grown tired of competing with a smartphone for her partner’s attention.

“It is hard to have a conversation with him, because he is constantly

WE’RE RESIGNED TO COMPANIONS WHO SOMETIMES PREFER TO USE THEIR DEVICES INSTEAD OF FULLY ENGAGING WITH US

distracted by his phone,” Gommers says. “When I ask something, he will answer, but I can tell that his mind is elsewhere. There is always someone who sends a text, and that means the end of the conversation, because it requires an answer.

“For a while, he was totally addicted to Wordfeud, an online word puzzle game you can play with anonymous others. As soon as he started a game, you were no longer allowed to speak, because he couldn’t focus.”

Because younger people grew up with a lot of exposure to technology, they’re more likely than older folks to use smartphones in social settings, and they’re considerably more likely to sit silently with a group of peers, each person staring at a phone. This has impacted the generation’s communication skills.

“Young people find it very difficult to develop the skill of talking to another person and paying attention to another person without engaging with a smartphone,” Kuss says. “They may have trouble having real- life conversations in a way that we older generations may be used to connecting to people and engaging in deep and meaningful conversation.”

A Silent Force

Smartphones are so influential, they can have power over a conversation even when they aren’t in use. Researchers have found that when a smartphone is placed on a table – even if the phone’s owner isn’t actively using it – the depth of mealtime conversation plummets.

“Our study found that when the phone was within sight of one or both conversation partners, the participants reported poorer quality of conversat ions and lower levels of empathetic exchange,” says study author Shalini Misra. “Rather than being a benign background object, smartphones that are in sight can dist ract individuals f rom their in-person context.”

Because people may realise that they can be interrupted, they’re

less likely to engage in conversations about feelings or problems, instead leaning towards superficial small talk.

“Meaningful conversations require attentive participants,” Misra says. “We need to listen to the words, tone and pauses, observe facial cues and body movements, and think about what we are hearing to understand what it means and respond appropriately. This is a complex task and requires a lot of cognitive resources. If our attention is split, our complex tasks – like conversations – will suffer. And the visibility of the phone prompts us to direct our thoughts to other things.”

A Negative Influence

In 2010, a ground-breaking study by researchers at the University of Michigan found that American college students had lower levels of empathy than college students did 30 years earlier. The researchers considered the effect of technology and social media on this deficit of empathy, but they didn’t draw conclusions about the cause for the drop between 1979 and 2009. Talking back then, study author Sara Konrath conceded that they didn’t have the evidence to support the idea that smartphones or social media were causing the loss of empathy. “There are probably multiple reasons for the change: changes in family dynamics and sizes, political activities.”

Since then, Konrath’s subsequent research has found that young adults have the lowest empathy levels, while middle-aged women have the highest levels. Why? Middle-aged women may have more opportunities to flex their empathy muscles: caring for their children, looking after their older parents and mentoring younger colleagues. Fortunately, Konrath says, you can increase your empathy levels with practice, and leaving your phone out of the equation can help.

“We are wired to react face-to-face – our ancestors didn’t have phones,” Konrath says. “It’s good to practice empathy in a face-to-face way. You have the capacity to see facial expressions and hear tone of voice. There are more signals about how they’re doing, so you can tune in better.”

Feeding an Addiction

Because smartphones are so distracting, people become preoccupied with them everywhere, even at work. Fabien Guasco, 43, gets frustrated when it disrupts his meetings.

“People are concentrating on the messages that arrive in their email box instead of listening to what is being said,” Guasco says. “That’s why I got into the habit of quickly turning silent if one of my staff is tapping away at their smartphone. As a result, everyone pays attention!”

Researchers have found out why it’s hard to put those devices down: they feed an addictive nature.

“Every time you get a ‘Like’ on social media or a reward in a game,” Bilke-Hentsch says, “you get a little

injection of dopamine in your reward centre in your brain. You want to have it again. It’s like smoking a cigarette or eating a sweet. Maybe from your spouse you don’t get these rewards.”

A Hopeful Solution

If you’re tired of playing second fiddle to a handheld device and you’d like to curtail a loved one’s smartphone usage without a heated argument, try these ideas:

• DETAIL YOUR NEEDS Spell out what you’d like – no phones at mealtime, perhaps, or no answering texts while you’re conversing – but speak calmly, and don’t accuse or blame. “Use more ‘I’ statements than ‘you’ statements,” Kuss says. “Say ‘I would like to spend more time with you,’ instead of ‘ You spend all of your time on technology.’”

• NEGOTIATE FOR FEWER ALERTS Your partner doesn’t just look at his phone when he wants to; the phone alerts him to check it whenever something happens on social media. If he disables the alerts, he’ll use his phone less often.

“Notifications will increase your actual use of the mobile phone,” says Joël Billieux, who studies the addictive use of information and communication technologies. “Research suggests that when you receive notifications, you generally check more applications than just the one that has sent the notification.”

• BE ‘PRO-POCKETS’ Encourage your partner to keep her unused phone in her pocket, not on the table. “When the phone is in sight, it becomes salient to the person, even if they don’t consciously realise that their attention is divided,” Misra says. “Out of sight” may very well be “out of mind”.

• CITE USER STATS Your partner may not realise how much time he spends on his phone, but his phone tracks how much time he spends on each app. Ask him to check his numbers.

“These make you realise the kind of time you are spending on your phone,” Kuss says. “Seeing that may decrease your use.”

• BUY YOUR PARTNER A WATCH Then they won’t have to reach for their phone to check the time. Says Billieux, “A recent study showed that people wearing a watch reduced their time spent using smartphones.”