Read-Think-b4-u-Write

Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? explores what it means to be human by looking at what it means to be an android. The big tell for androids; they can't empathize with each other, with humans or animals. To determine an andy from a human, there is the elaborate Voight Kampff test that measures empathetic response to a series of questions. Each question should elicit some kind of sympathetic response. If no dilation of the pupil or blush response, then you are dealing with an android.Seems pretty straight forward and since it's science fiction, we know it works (at least in the novel). As humans empathy cues us to feed a crying child while an anguished look tells us to help out a pained friend and requires communication -- we can read both smiles (pleasure) and suffering (pain). It's more than just putting yourself in another's shoes, it's caring about what happens to the person in your sneakers. At the University of Virginia, James Coan...

Sherry Turkle, an author and M.I.T. professor of Science, Technology, and Society recently wrote in  "Stop Googling. Let's Talk"  that college age students cannot carry on a face-to-face conversation. She cites plenty of statistics to show that most believe that using "phones in social settings hurt the conversation," but apparently we either don't care, don't know how to carry on a conversation, or can't put them down. There are plenty of anecdotes from young people who want the fairy tale life where families sit around the dinner table and share their day while speaking "enthusiastically" about the rule of three--at least three people must be conversing before you can check your phone. According to Turkle, this loss of conversation leads to a loss of empathy and an inability to just be quiet with one's thoughts. We must be secure with ourselves before "we are able to really hear what other people have to say." But ...