It’s so great when friends get together like this.

This piece from the NY Times on how phones keep us disconnected hovers around a topic we see covered a lot (and that I keep coming back to myself, here), but references several studies that make it hit harder than your average thinkpiece.

In 2010, a team at the University of Michigan led by the psychologist Sara Konrath put together the findings of 72 studies that were conducted over a 30-year period. They found a 40 percent decline in empathy among college students, with most of the decline taking place after 2000.

Across generations, technology is implicated in this assault on empathy. We’ve gotten used to being connected all the time, but we have found ways around conversation — at least from conversation that is open-ended and spontaneous, in which we play with ideas and allow ourselves to be fully present and vulnerable. But it is in this type of conversation — where we learn to make eye contact, to become aware of another person’s posture and tone, to comfort one another and respectfully challenge one another — that empathy and intimacy flourish. In these conversations, we learn who we are.

The studies make it seem undeniable, but the interpretation here isn’t simply about people having short attention spans or being shallow. There’s a more poignant spin that we’re just afraid to expose ourselves and be open, and the less practiced we are at that, the easier it is to retreat to the safety of the mediated conversation over the one right in front of us.

How often do you turn to the phone when you should be engaged in conversation? Why do you think you do this?

When other people do the same thing, what do you think of them?

Do you think your ability to have a meaningful conversation is improving or suffering over time? Does this have anything to do with the technology in your life?

Do you even want to change this trajectory, or is this an acceptable evolution of how we interact for you?

[Note: photo taken from artist Eric Pickersgill’s series of group photos with the phones removed for effect. Lovely project.]