Book review: Silicon Valley's pervasive tech robbing us of “embodied” experiences?
Mediated technology offers us many opportunities (like reading our site!), says author Christine Rosen; but what's it taking away? Namely, the ability to observe and interact with our surroundings by ourselves and individually, without third parties telling us how to think—a crucial skill for free marketeers. Below, Law & Liberty reviews Rosen's fascinating new book on the subject.
Most of us spend our days looking at the world through screens—televisions in waiting rooms and restaurants, computers at work, and the rectangles of doom that are our phones—during any interval of the day that feels boring or slow. We use these devices for shopping, for entertainment, and occasionally to talk to other people. We have come to see this as normal. The idea of making one’s way through the world without a smartphone now seems increasingly difficult, not to say impossible. Yet every screen “mediates” reality and detaches us from the flesh and blood interactions that used to be routine. These screens deliver experience to us, encouraging us to leave a review or take advantage of a simple return policy if we are not satisfied.
I can imagine someone replying: well, why would we want to live without technology? This is precisely the question that Rosen’s book answers. In a succinct and damning seven chapters, she shows what has been lost over the past quarter-century. We have lost our ability to wait patiently, to pay attention to other people, and to take personal risks in real-life conversations. We are obsessed with tracking and quantifying ourselves and everything else that interests us. We have lost our ability to delay gratification, since anything we want is quickly (or immediately) available through Amazon. We prize unlimited choice and convenience. We are narcissistic and civilly disengaged. We hate to be bored, and we desire efficiency in everything from dating to education. Serendipity has been eliminated in favor of ruthless intentionality. Our lives are a kind of self-display, and we do not hesitate to commodify our most intimate moments and parade ourselves in front of strangers.
The picture of contemporary Americans that emerges from the book is remarkably unflattering. It is tempting, I must admit, to imagine that other people may be subject to these problems but that we have managed to escape the depredations of technology. Perhaps, we reason, it is just our children’s generation—the “digital natives”—who are really slaves to their screens. But many aspects of Rosen’s diagnosis hit uncomfortably close to home. Who among us has not found it easier and less entangling to send a quick text than to call someone? Or to check messages while waiting in a long line at the grocery store? Even the few Luddite holdouts I used to know now have phones, “for emergencies.” This is how it always starts. …
Rosen wants to convey a vision of what it means to exist as an “embodied” person. True, our mediated experiences allow us to escape some of the little discomforts of the human condition: the awkwardness that sometimes accompanies small talk, a blush when we are embarrassed, the powerlessness of not knowing where we are in a new city. But in all our pointing, clicking, and typing we are losing some of the most basic skills that in the past were taken for granted. …
Writing by hand offers a good example of this. The “embodied cognition” of taking notes with a pen or pencil is qualitatively different from acting as a stenographer or court reporter. … And a letter from a friend “in his own hand” always seems more personal and intimate than something typed on a screen. …
Likewise, the act of making something—a chair or a soufflé—requires that we engage with more than thoughts, words, numbers, and other abstractions. In working with wood or eggs we quickly discover that we cannot wish these substances into the forms that we desire. We must adapt ourselves to their properties and learn how things “push back” against us. …
Food offers just as strange a case study: people order restaurant food for delivery by GrubHub and Doordash while watching celebrity chefs assembling exquisite meals on television. …
One other important aspect of embodiedness is the concept of place. Although Zoom, Teams, and other such online meeting technologies have their virtues, they are no substitute for the in-person interactions that happen in an office, school, or neighborhood. From Jane Jacobs’ work on city planning to the design of residential houses, people have long recognized that the way we live is structured by the places where we live. …
Christine Rosen’s valuable book reminds us that we cannot escape our embodied, timebound human condition, nor should we want to. This condition has its downsides: we get older, we lose our physical powers and whatever beauty we may have had, and ultimately we die. Technology promises a partial escape from some of these indignities, though our bodies will have the last word. But technology also diverts our attention in ways that may cause us to reach the end of life and feel, like Percy’s tourist, that we have missed all the fun. As poet Mary Oliver writes, “How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly, looking at everything.” Rosen’s book is a masterfully executed reminder of this insight.
Read the whole thing here.
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