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Comment by balutdev | Hacker News Reader

The article in its current format is almost unreadable.

The art of conversation is unknown to many. I attempt to explain to others that conversation is a volley - not a match. Serve up softballs, allow others to answer questions, and then return the favor by asking a question.

Conversations with the iPad generation are almost worthless. Conversations with strangers are often fruitless. I am silent for the most part because people cannot speak in a manner that would suggest they have any interest outside of their own pleasures.

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Do you have kids? My very most favorite thing to do is to converse with my kids, 17-25, and my second is to somehow overhear them discussing things amongst their friends. Language styles have surely changed, and they have a lot more media and comms savvy, but an exchange of propositions intended to elucidate an issue more clearly seems to be alive and well.

And as far as people your own age, perhaps you are encountering the sad truth that most of adult interaction is not like collegiate exploration of reality, nor even the semi good natured posturing of high school, but the out and out war of junior high school.

Seek out small groups with interesting concerns and you can find open, inquisitive minds.

Also, those dumb strangers, probably they all have at least one interesting story in them, try a strategy of adjusting your words to make what you wish to find more probably. It won’t always work, but enough to make public transit a fun way to get around.

I’m old Gen Z, and admit that I don’t have the time or perspective to really compare past and present, and despite how often this sort of take is reasonably dismissed as grumpy cynicism: I am inclined to agree.

I’ve made a priority of improving the way in which I communicate the last few years, and think I’ve made genuine progress. Stuff like actively listening, avoiding interruption, making peace with someone explaining something I already understand, etc…

But after all this, I’ve come to realize that I wasn’t as relatively bad at conversation as I thought I was when I started. So many of my peers struggle with this. There is so much showing others this thing or that, always asymmetrically. There is a pervasive fear of wasting the other persons’ time - I think this has to do with us growing up with instant dopamine available in our palms. There is so much anxiety in communication. There is a fear of being wrong, or a fear of speaking without trivial qualification. And most importantly: there is a failure to understand the effort required to listen well.

This is just my experience, and my own analysis as it relates to my life. I’m aware that it comes across as cynical, but thought it might be worth sharing here. We need to get our attention back, and see the value (without forcing) of relating to others.

It makes the gems stand out even more, but I wish the art of conversation was something people actively considered when they thought about their own personality, or when they examined their anxieties.

Too much screen time makes people bubble over with the desire to speak which makes it hard to have normal conversation till that need subsides. Even pre-computer, I had a term at a college once with basically no:friends or social acquaintances, ended by one of my best friends visiting so we could tour around. I talked at my friend for like two days before taking a breath and asking how he was doing.

And yeah, developing the ability to listen to what people are saying without getting overwhelmed by/your internal stream of thoughts makes listening a lot more interesting and more useful. Much misunderstanding can be avoided and many interesting things to ask about are only subtly hinted at the first time.

Really well put - thanks for extending my point. The experience you described in the first paragraph is very similar to the one that led me to realize how necessary it was for me to become aware of the way I communicate (conversate?) w/ others.

Converse?

Thank you, I can sleep in peace now.

> There is so much showing others this thing or that, always asymmetrically. There is a pervasive fear of wasting the other persons’ time - I think this has to do with us growing up with instant dopamine available in our palms.

This really resonated with me. Thank you

Cheers, glad you saw some value in my perspective. It's based strongly on both my own missteps and those of others.

To add, the platforms which make this instant dopamine available are marketing platforms, and they encourage (reward) a social posture of self-marketing.

So not only do us 'users' become products, but we are rewarded for selling ourselves.

I'm fed up with conversations. I value altruistic softness, politeness and being sociable. But it's a shallow muddy game without the right feel or tension.

Too much time it devolves on vague if not fluff talk where people are more focused on liability rather than honesty, fun, joy or thinking.

Even with best efforts in seeking shared fun the stats are too low.

> where people are more focused on liability rather than honesty, fun, joy or thinking.

You have to find people who don't give a fuck. They're way more fun to talk to.

Partly true, you don't want totally free radicals either :)

I'm a very young millenial, probably a year or two older than the other Gen Z replier. As of late I've really been able to resonate with feeling as though other people, especially those at my age range (the "ipad generation"), struggle to converse outside of the "stuff they like" - their comfort zone. It's very frustrating, and it makes me feel as though I can't relate to others as easily. I've often wondered if this mindset is brought on by reliance on social media to only feed you more content that is "stuff you like."

I've also come to feel, though, that conversation is not at all a human instinct. It's a skill to be honed like any other, but it isn't clearly valued on our society. Guitar, painting, writing blog posts, or any other skill which can be used as a personal medium of expression are almost completely cut out from the education system in favor of only presenting common core topics which are mostly inapplicable and unhelpful to the average citizen.

Humans want to express themselves, but I feel as though we're rapidly running out of unique ways to do so - or at least, ways that feel unique in a world of billions. When people are talking about "stuff they like," I feel as though it's a symptom of them not having the skills that they need to express their humanity, and to understand your own. It's not even really their fault... no one taught them, they just haven't figured it out on their own yet.

When there's no guarantee that humans kicked out into the world at 18 will have any idea of how to relate to other people's human experiences... how can you expect them to be any good at conversing with you? All we have is our soul anyway, as Socrates once taught us, so we each stand to benefit from knowing how to talk about it.

If you feel like you're too good at [the guitar] for your [band], bail. If you'd feel even better enabling them for a lifetime to express themselves better through [music], then pour your heart into teaching them. But there are many other people out there who are very, very skilled at [making music], and if [making great music] is a true driving force for you, then you have to go and seek it out.

Mix and match the words in the brackets for advice on any skill you can only practice with other people, especially conversation :3

That's my experience and philosophy at least, and I think it's really been helping me through some agonizing feelings as of late. I'm sorry that you've had such frustrating experiences just trying to relate to people, I know the feeling and it's totally soul-sucking.

Powerful prose. And my reading of you is that we are getting what we want, for a certain base level of we. And because we prioritize for the base, the outsider passions are increasingly estranged and neglected.

The match is no fun.

I've seen another kind of conversation, in a crowd, where the aim is to keep the attention upon yourself.

On social media I sometimes say pointy things to attract a conversation. Is that similar? Maybe.

I have a couple favorite subjects that I find almost impossible to get conversations about.

Conversation has become a game of who can contribute the least by making useless witty comments.

Emojis may be the worst thing to happen to conversation in history.

They are the laziest form of communication on earth.

It's a reply without having to think of anything to further the conversation.

They are a replacement for non verbal communication such as a head nod, or hand wave, or a smile. Not a way to express a full thought in and of itself.

With a head nod, you're still on the hook for contributing to the conversation.

People mark an emoji and then keep scrolling feeling good about themselves.

I suppose the context of the conversation matters. I always check who left what emojis to get a feeling of the room, but I'm usually in smaller rooms where I know the people. In a larger discord for example with many strangers, I think your right in an individual level, but as the poster of a comment, it still helps gauge the general temperature of the audience, so too speak, regardless of who is on the hook for continued conversation. Not sure I would notice a head nod if I was speaking in a room to hundreds of people anyways though.

I'm not saying it's superior, but I appreciate the nuance's it can bring to online dialog where otherwise many misinterpretations are likely to happen

You must be fun at parties

But, do you have fun at parties?

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