In the digital age where a connection to friends, acquaintances and the workplace has never been more prevalent, it would seem our ability and willingness to communicate with other people has reached an all-time high.

Instead of making us closer, however, the technology might be keeping people at an arm’s length.

Psychologist and media scholar Sherry Turkle claims our digital connection through social networks, texting and work email is making our interactions less personal. The technology is distracting us from the live human beings with whom we are paying increasingly less attention.

“Research shows that if you put a phone on the table between two people at dinner the conversation stays light and also they don’t feel as much empathic connection to each other,”Turkle tells Steve Fast.

Turkle, who has been studying the psychology of the human relationship with technology since the mid-70s, says research shows there has been a 40% decline in empathy among college students over the last two decades.

“Our devices, just as an unintended consequence, are changing what we’re getting out of conversation,” Turkle says. “And conversation isn’t being allowed to do the work it can do in our personal relationships — in our relationships with our kids and at work — where it really is something that solidifies the creation of empathy.”

Sherry Turkle states the case for the benefit of establishing an in-person human connection in her book “Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in the Digital Age.”

Listen to the interview: Sherry Turkle on The Steve Fast Show

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