About this Event

Our daily tech choices are resulting in disintegrating conversations, distracted brains, and reduced human empathy. How should we respond?

Social scientists across multiple disciplines now have mountains of evidence about the ways digital and social media are affecting and changing nearly every aspect of human interaction: in families, friendships, marriages, between patients and clients, with neighbors, and even between strangers. While the data are quite clear about the fact that almost everyone over the age of ten is digitally saturated, questions about the precise relational, health, and mental health consequences of our collective digital love-affair are just beginning to clearly emerge. What the data suggest should be cause for concern and become topics of conversation in every context of our lives. Why? Because the inconvenient truth is this: Our daily tech choices are resulting in disintegrating conversations, distracted brains, reduced human empathy, and multiple negative mental and physical health outcomes. In this dynamic presentation, Dr. Carol Bruess will address the current state of our relationship to technology and provide practical approaches to help each of us re-evaluate our relationships both to each other and to the devices we adore.

Carol J. Bruess, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Communication and Journalism & formerly Director of Family Studies at the University of St. Thomas, MN. Most recently she served three years as Resident Scholar in the Cassandra Voss Center at St. Norbert College. For three decades she has been a professor, researcher, author, and speaker passionate about the communicative realities of creating healthy relationships through micro-moments of interaction and ritual. Carol is particularly interested in the impact of the digital age on in-depth listening, robust conversations, and human empathy.

Her six books include Foundations of Wefulness Theory (forthcoming, 2022, with Audra Nuru); Family Communication in the Age of Digital and Social Media (2015, ed., Peter Lang International); Contemporary Issues in Interpersonal Communication (with Mark P. Orbe, Roxbury/Oxford University Press, 2005); and three contemporary self-help books grounded in her original research: What Happy Couples Do (2008), What Happy Parents Do (2009), and What Happy Women Do (2010), (with Anna Kudak, Rowman & Littlefield). She is also currently working on two new book projects: Dear Cassie: Lessons for Living the Good Life—a story of turning grief into resounding resilience and doing what you never thought was possible. And an inspirational book series forthcoming about the bumpy road of marriage – How Happy Couples Journey: A Joyful Roadmap for Marriage, including accompanying kits to help couples master the art of creating and sustaining their spark.

This lecture will be offered live on Zoom.