Montrose Journalists Connect with Sherry Turkle, author of “Reclaiming Conversation”

Montrose Journalists Connect with Sherry Turkle, author of Reclaiming Conversation

If you were keeping up with us through our daily vlogs on Instagram (@humansofmontrose) last month, you will recall that a group of us decided to give up Social Media for a week in response to Sherry Turkle’s article “The Flight from Conversation.” Some of us failed, and some of us succeeded, but everyone got something out of the week. Being forced to interact and have a conversation with people to find out what they did was truly rewarding and helped us hone some key social skills. Plus, by removing some of the opportunities for procrastination, some of us were able to get more sleep and be more efficient with our work. It was an extremely productive week for Journalism 9/10 (and others who joined us!), and at the conclusion of our experiment we sent Dr. Turkle a letter explaining our experiment and inviting her to Montrose. (Maddie Marcucci ’19)

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A few weeks after sending Dr. Turkle a letter of introduction with a lunch invitation and our article, she graciously sent an email back. Dr. Turkle expressed her interest in Journalism 9/10’s article We Gave Up Social Media for a Week and Here’s What We Learned and said that she genuinely enjoyed our piece. Though Dr. Turkle is unable to stop by at this time, our class was beyond ecstatic to hear from her!

She said that the results of our Montrose experiment verified her own research, which we would read in her book.. She wrote: “You will find much confirmation of your experiences, much!” She also kindly mailed us a copy of her recent book Reclaiming Conversation with a dedication to the Journalism class. Our journalism section plans to take turns reading the book, but feel free to stop by if you want to check it out sometime. In the future, we hope to have an optional all-school social media free trial to allow students to experience a few conversation-filled days! (Mariel Rosati ’19)