Have smartphones killed the art of conversation?

By David Le Breton

Once upon a time, human relationships unfolded without smartphones. The reality may be hard to recall, so profoundly have these devices transformed the way we relate to the world and others in fifteen years or so.

As an anthropologist interested in modernity, I am particularly preoccupied by the impact of these devices on our conversations. In my book, The End of the Conversation? Words in a Spectral Wociety (French original: La fin de la conversation? La parole dans une société spectrale)...