Sherry Turkle is a professor at MIT, specialising in how people relate to technology. In Reclaiming Conversation, Turkle explores how younger cohorts, our 'digital natives', interact with and communicate using technology. It’s both terrifying and fascinating to read her observation that communications technology and social media have already marginalised the perceived requirement for face-to-face contact and communication. The implication of this is a loss of ability to read facial expression and empathise with other humans. The ability to think critically, or solve complex problems is also radically compromised by the growing challenge of constant distraction, or inattention.  

To the first point, this explains in part the growing frustration that we hear among employers that millennials don’t seem able or willing to communicate effectively face to face. To the second point, when we know that the jobs of the future are contingent on our human ability to apply deep focus and think critically, we’re left wondering whether or not the creative capacity of the human brain has already been irreparably damaged by the very technology that we are told could supersede us unless we remain relevant. Super sobering!