Seeking Space For Conversation

The Statesman, Aug 15 , 2019

When growing up, one of the simple joys of life was talking: long, animated, often uninhibited exchanges punctuated by smiles, laughter, gasps or even silence.  A friend was someone you could talk to about everything under the sun. I remember sitting up late at night conversing with friends till sleep overtook us, or discussing ideas passionately over a single long drawn out cup of coffee in a restaurant where the waiters thought it more important to let friends talk rather than earn an extra buck with a new set of customers.  People talked, argued, laughed, reasoned, teased, cajoled, and admonished. The act of talking was a relief, if not an outright pleasure.

Although we are in the midst of an explosion of social media, this unfettered, meaningful communication seems to be difficult to achieve. The reach of our conversation has increased, but its quality and our satisfaction has reduced.

Much of the talking that was done face - to- face is now over social media apps. A lot of the warmth and the nuances of good conversation, the non - verbal cues are lost in the exchange. This leads to greater miscommunication and misunderstandings as the expressions and tone cannot always be correctly inferred. Communication on social media thrives on brevity as attention spans are limited. Excellent conversationalists suddenly find themselves challenged by the need to constantly abbreviate and summarize. Some are not technically conversant with tools on social media and have a limited understanding of emoticons thus making their conversations sound sterile and robotic.

We now focus far too much on the speakers’ background and affiliation and too little on the content of the speech. Suspicion runs deep in today’s polarized world and distrust abounds. Recently, when the question arose of whether doctoral dissertations in universities should come under political scrutiny it led to a justified public debate. On one hand was the academics’ view that being experienced, they could better identify the critical and in-depth studies needed in their field of expertise. On the other hand were politicians who wanted to put their stamp on academia by allowing funding for only those theses which they deemed to be of ‘national importance’. Such citizens that simply just debated this topic were deemed to be anti -government. Similar conundrums have existed for ages: for example, should scientists who have a deeper understanding of the subject decide climate change policies or should politicians? Most conversation now has acquired a political flavor. People are uncomfortable plumbing the depths of a topic as what they say is made out to have a deeper political meaning, even if none exists.

Conversations are open to a large group of people and this attracts trolls also. These trolls disrupt meaningful conversations. If at first the trolls do not succeed, their involvement with the conversation becomes increasingly abusive and hostile till the speaker is either forced to defend himself or get angry and distracted or simply block/report the troll. The end result is that the original idea gets totally deflected, lost in an obfuscating smoke of negativity. It also makes one very uneasy to find that one’s conversations are monitored.

There exists a conversational overload. If you subscribe to several platforms like Face book, Whatsapp, Instagram etc, a substantial amount of your time could be taken up in interacting with friends or colleagues or just anyone else who may have posted something that catches your attention. In attending to too many conversations at the same time, we are unable to let a worthwhile conversation blossom. 

Finally, it is difficult to converse with the many ‘anonymous ‘people ubiquitous in every group. In ordinary conversations on social groups, it is not easy to talk as naturally and freely as one would like to as there remains an air of formality with strangers - nameless, faceless individuals who would also end up getting addressed in the conversation. 

Given these challenges to wholesome conversations, there is a great deal to be said about engaging in good old face - to - face interactions more frequently. Also in order to have a more meaningful conversation, conversing in smaller groups on WhatsApp is better, where the thread is not lost due to random forwards. Larger groups should be used for professional discussions and invitations to programmes or putting out useful information for the public at large.

In bygone times, it was known as the Art of Conversation, where the personality of the persons engaging in conversation shone through. The joy of a deep conversation, in a safe environment with the right people is almost therapeutic- it is satisfying, stimulating, and rejuvenating. Nowadays people always seem to be in a rush so conversations are also getting abbreviated. Into the realm of healthy discussions there have crept in undesirable changes reflective of the times we live in .So is there not some innovative way of reclaiming the art of good conversation and rediscovering its lost joy?