I hope you enjoy my 11 minute Ontario Public Service internal TedX presentation entitled: Netizens, Citizens – Zoomers and Boomers: Look Up, Speak Out! By Diana Platts (Jonas) Pivot to the Talking Cure: Reclaim Conversation and Start Talking to Strangers.
Pivot to the Talking Cure
To cure the crisis of empathy resulting from being ‘cured of talking’ – being ‘silenced’ by our technologies we need more than a ‘digital detox’ not viable during the pandemic and lockdown 2.0 – we need to PIVOT to the “talking cure” to bridge WFH and generational divides at home at work and in life. We need more EI not AI. But ultimately digital communication (says Sherry Turkle and Malcolm Gladwell) should SUPPLEMENT not replace Face to Face and netizens and citizens alike must develop our capacity and willingness to learn how to talk; this includes how to talk to strangers in this borderless world not just to improve our empathy and salvage meaningful real time, face to face relationships, but ultimately to save the human race.
SOURCES: This video is based on extensive research with deep appreciation and gratitude for the authors of the following books: Reclaiming Conversation, ‘The Power of Talk in a Digital Age’ and Alone Together by Sherry Turkle & Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell. Word Poem extracts are based on the 2016 viral video by Gary Turk)
The video is shot entirely in my home and it features my own daughter, Alexandra Jonas, who is featured as the disgruntled youth who wants others to put down their phones and LOOK UP!
Below is a promo I produced to help us generate interest for this event. We had almost 1000 Ontario government staff in the virtual audience for this event held during lock down.
Hats off to my amazing creative and technical crew: Director & DOP Mario Resnik, and the wonderful editor and magician Bora Tetik (tetikbora@gmail.com).