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The Extinction of Experience: Reclaiming Our Humanity in a Digital World
Human experiences are disappearing. The Extinction of Experience is a philosophical defence of what makes us human – and a powerful call to reclaim ourselves in a digital world.
'Fascinating and timely' OLIVER BURKEMAN
'An extremely important book' JONATHAN HAIDT
'Essential reading in a dislocated world' KATHERINE MAY
*A GUARDIAN BOOK TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2025*
Social media, gaming and dating apps have usurped in-person interaction; handwriting is no longer prioritised in schools; and emotion is sooner expressed through likes and emojis than face-to-face conversations. With headphones in and eyes trained on our phones, even boredom has been obliterated. But, as Christine Rosen expertly shows, when we embrace this mediated life and conform to the demands of the machine, we risk becoming more machine-like ourselves.
There is another way. For too long we’ve accepted the idea that change always means better. But rapidly developing technology isn’t neutral – it’s ambivalent, and capable of enormous harm. To improve our well-being, help future generations flourish and recover our shared humanity, we must become more mindful users of technology and more discerning of how it uses us.
From TikTok challenges and algorithms to surveillance devices and conspiracy culture, The Extinction of Experience reveals the human crisis of our digital age – and urges us to return to the real world, while we still can.
'Christine Rosen is one of America's best writers and thinkers' WASHINGTON EXAMINER
'Fascinating and timely' OLIVER BURKEMAN
'An extremely important book' JONATHAN HAIDT
'Essential reading in a dislocated world' KATHERINE MAY
*A GUARDIAN BOOK TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2025*
Social media, gaming and dating apps have usurped in-person interaction; handwriting is no longer prioritised in schools; and emotion is sooner expressed through likes and emojis than face-to-face conversations. With headphones in and eyes trained on our phones, even boredom has been obliterated. But, as Christine Rosen expertly shows, when we embrace this mediated life and conform to the demands of the machine, we risk becoming more machine-like ourselves.
There is another way. For too long we’ve accepted the idea that change always means better. But rapidly developing technology isn’t neutral – it’s ambivalent, and capable of enormous harm. To improve our well-being, help future generations flourish and recover our shared humanity, we must become more mindful users of technology and more discerning of how it uses us.
From TikTok challenges and algorithms to surveillance devices and conspiracy culture, The Extinction of Experience reveals the human crisis of our digital age – and urges us to return to the real world, while we still can.
'Christine Rosen is one of America's best writers and thinkers' WASHINGTON EXAMINER
254 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 10, 2024
506 people are currently reading
10730 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 281 reviews
October 8, 2024
I’ll start this off by saying that I think this would be a very eye-opening and important book for a lot of people. It does a really good job of lying out the problems and absurdities with how we use technology, and if readers weren’t aware of those, this would be good for them. I am painfully aware of how messed up our relationship with technology is, as I think a lot of my generation is. I didn’t need more doom porn and complaining about our world and our phones. I wanted solutions. I wanted someone to speak on how we can exist as human beings inside this new world. There is no going back, we’re in it now. I found so much of the book to be magical thinking, hoping that somehow we could just erase all this progress. We can’t, and we shouldn’t. For better or worse, we have to redefine what it means to be human (just as all generations have done before us, this is nothing new).
Also, I didn’t like the writing or research styles of the author. A lot of the “evidence” that she puts forward about how far gone our culture has become is profoundly lacking in subtext and context. (i.e. “Her,” my favorite movie, is reduced by the author to a troublesome romanizing of relationships with our cellphones. Wrong. It’s a metaphor about love.) Also, some things do not need a citation. It is okay to just opine on things that one observes. There was just so much research (much of which felt, again, stripped of context and nuance that may have undercut the author’s propositions), that whatever good point the author was trying to make was lost.
I wanted to like this, and I agree with nearly everything the author says. Yet, while reading, I kept asking myself “What is the point of this?” And the answer I kept coming back to was “To complain.” Let me know when the sequel comes out that actually teaches me about “Being Human in a Disembodied World,” because this one sure didn’t.
Also, I didn’t like the writing or research styles of the author. A lot of the “evidence” that she puts forward about how far gone our culture has become is profoundly lacking in subtext and context. (i.e. “Her,” my favorite movie, is reduced by the author to a troublesome romanizing of relationships with our cellphones. Wrong. It’s a metaphor about love.) Also, some things do not need a citation. It is okay to just opine on things that one observes. There was just so much research (much of which felt, again, stripped of context and nuance that may have undercut the author’s propositions), that whatever good point the author was trying to make was lost.
I wanted to like this, and I agree with nearly everything the author says. Yet, while reading, I kept asking myself “What is the point of this?” And the answer I kept coming back to was “To complain.” Let me know when the sequel comes out that actually teaches me about “Being Human in a Disembodied World,” because this one sure didn’t.
March 18, 2025
The central idea of Rosen's book is that when the technocomplex of a human society changes, there is meaningful cultural decay. More specifically, Rosen believes that the increasing digitization of life has estranged us from some fundamental aspects of being human. In my view, these ideas are largely uncontroversial yet still intriguing. The various ways that Rosen illustrates how we have strayed far from traditional human socialization and learning are what compelled my attention.
Arguments like the one presented in this book raise hackles because various flavors of Luditism in the past have been easy to ridicule given the benefit of hindsight (though there is increasingly a taste for some nuanced revisionism). Moral panics of any variety have a poor track record. Rosen isn't necessarily egging one on. It's good we're trying to learn from history, but this doesn't absolve us from thinking about how technology is shaping us. This is really the purpose of Rosen's book. She forces the reader to confront these issues at a high resolution without venturing into polemical territory. In some ways, this is a more reflective version of Jon Haidt's The Anxious Generation or any of Jean Twenge's writing on the socialization of Gen Z. Rosen's work has sociological aspects and provides social commentary, but I'd argue the main orientation of the work is philosophical. Subsequently, the familiarity of many of the ideas presented don't feel stale. The approach reminds me of The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is by Justin E. H. Smith, but the work is less discursive and speculative.
The unsatisfying aspect of the work is that there's no reason to feel a moral way about our new technocomplex unless we have a good justification for why our prior one was superior. Rosen suggests some ways in which this might be true, but it isn't clear this is the case. Her concerns are implicitly justified by a particular view of human nature and a Chesterton's Fence position (Rosen is a conservative) buttressed by some of the easily identifiable elements of discontent in today's culture that are closely associated with online life invading the real world. The trouble here is that humans may simply adjust to the new technology and by adapting find a new happier and more prosperous equilibrium. We may just be living through the growing pains today. There are plenty of reasons to believe this too.
Nonetheless, I'm favorably disposed to Rosen's sense of human nature. We are embodied. As humans, we will remain embodied. If we care about being human (as opposed to something else) then we should know our limits. The project is ongoing. Some deny that there is an essential human nature. This seems wrongheaded. We are a species - a social one too. We must have an essential set even if we have a great deal of flexibility. I think Rosen's book helps us get closer to the specifics of what being human means as technology rapidly changes the world around us. The big and unsurprising takeaway is that we should jealously guard our human-to-human connections even as we embrace change.
Even though I enjoyed the way Rosen's book provoked me to think about the consequences of our new technocomplex, I don't want to provide a blanket recommendation of this book. I think for readers that are looking for thorough sociological analysis of the problem, I'd recommend primary research efforts. However, I'd caution those that there's really nothing definitive on this question, and I think ultimately scientific finding aren't going to provide an answer to "How we should live as humans with ubiquitous mediating technologies?" This is a book to sit and think with - fodder for daydreams. It doesn't answer any of the questions it raises.
Arguments like the one presented in this book raise hackles because various flavors of Luditism in the past have been easy to ridicule given the benefit of hindsight (though there is increasingly a taste for some nuanced revisionism). Moral panics of any variety have a poor track record. Rosen isn't necessarily egging one on. It's good we're trying to learn from history, but this doesn't absolve us from thinking about how technology is shaping us. This is really the purpose of Rosen's book. She forces the reader to confront these issues at a high resolution without venturing into polemical territory. In some ways, this is a more reflective version of Jon Haidt's The Anxious Generation or any of Jean Twenge's writing on the socialization of Gen Z. Rosen's work has sociological aspects and provides social commentary, but I'd argue the main orientation of the work is philosophical. Subsequently, the familiarity of many of the ideas presented don't feel stale. The approach reminds me of The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is by Justin E. H. Smith, but the work is less discursive and speculative.
The unsatisfying aspect of the work is that there's no reason to feel a moral way about our new technocomplex unless we have a good justification for why our prior one was superior. Rosen suggests some ways in which this might be true, but it isn't clear this is the case. Her concerns are implicitly justified by a particular view of human nature and a Chesterton's Fence position (Rosen is a conservative) buttressed by some of the easily identifiable elements of discontent in today's culture that are closely associated with online life invading the real world. The trouble here is that humans may simply adjust to the new technology and by adapting find a new happier and more prosperous equilibrium. We may just be living through the growing pains today. There are plenty of reasons to believe this too.
Nonetheless, I'm favorably disposed to Rosen's sense of human nature. We are embodied. As humans, we will remain embodied. If we care about being human (as opposed to something else) then we should know our limits. The project is ongoing. Some deny that there is an essential human nature. This seems wrongheaded. We are a species - a social one too. We must have an essential set even if we have a great deal of flexibility. I think Rosen's book helps us get closer to the specifics of what being human means as technology rapidly changes the world around us. The big and unsurprising takeaway is that we should jealously guard our human-to-human connections even as we embrace change.
Even though I enjoyed the way Rosen's book provoked me to think about the consequences of our new technocomplex, I don't want to provide a blanket recommendation of this book. I think for readers that are looking for thorough sociological analysis of the problem, I'd recommend primary research efforts. However, I'd caution those that there's really nothing definitive on this question, and I think ultimately scientific finding aren't going to provide an answer to "How we should live as humans with ubiquitous mediating technologies?" This is a book to sit and think with - fodder for daydreams. It doesn't answer any of the questions it raises.
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July 29, 2025Really good book that's got me reconsidering everything--even with my recent pull back from social media, there's still a feeling of disconnect from the world and this book helps explain that, and even offers some suggestions.
On the whole, it is not the most optimistic, and it did leave out some things I thought worth considering, but it's an important read and I recommend it to everyone who's interested in keeping what makes us human, regardless of how much we enjoy our toys.
On the whole, it is not the most optimistic, and it did leave out some things I thought worth considering, but it's an important read and I recommend it to everyone who's interested in keeping what makes us human, regardless of how much we enjoy our toys.
November 11, 2024
This book sucks. It shouldn’t suck, but it sucks. The premise is very agreeable: people are addicted to their phones and it is killing the human experience. I couldn’t agree more. The thought of kids growing up on iPads so their parents don’t have to actually raise them terrifies me. I recently began feeling incredibly addicted to my phone, so to alleviate that I deleted all social media (except instagram which I limit to 15 minutes per day). So, this book had a lot of topics it could cover that would be poignant and valuable.
Instead, the author complained about google maps making life too easy and yearned for the days of the paper map. She told anecdotes about people “marrying” anime characters and tried to paint these, what I can only assume are incredibly rare, situations as being emblematic of the problems we face today. Nearly every complaint she had, which were frequently supported by “research” in the form of her basically saying she read an article that spooked her, was so inane and overstated it made me want to just throw the book away. Not to mention the fact that the life she yearns for is one from her childhood, so the book really had an undercurrent of the classic “back in my day” lecture you get at Thanksgiving instead of having a deeper analysis of the problems modern technologies can pose. Her writing style can be boiled down to quoting something she read, then telling you the most obvious conclusion from that quote, and then expecting you to be amazed by her insight.
In essence, the only reason this book didn’t get one star from me is because I do think the central theme is important: we are losing our humanity and our ability to interact with each other by living our lives on our phones, and this situation can be traced back to the greed of corporations that only care about you watching just one more video or reading one more tweet before you close your phone so they can get their precious ad dollars and data from you (an angle not adequately covered by the book in my opinion). Beyond just having the idea to write about this topic, the author failed in all other respects when it comes to this book.
Instead, the author complained about google maps making life too easy and yearned for the days of the paper map. She told anecdotes about people “marrying” anime characters and tried to paint these, what I can only assume are incredibly rare, situations as being emblematic of the problems we face today. Nearly every complaint she had, which were frequently supported by “research” in the form of her basically saying she read an article that spooked her, was so inane and overstated it made me want to just throw the book away. Not to mention the fact that the life she yearns for is one from her childhood, so the book really had an undercurrent of the classic “back in my day” lecture you get at Thanksgiving instead of having a deeper analysis of the problems modern technologies can pose. Her writing style can be boiled down to quoting something she read, then telling you the most obvious conclusion from that quote, and then expecting you to be amazed by her insight.
In essence, the only reason this book didn’t get one star from me is because I do think the central theme is important: we are losing our humanity and our ability to interact with each other by living our lives on our phones, and this situation can be traced back to the greed of corporations that only care about you watching just one more video or reading one more tweet before you close your phone so they can get their precious ad dollars and data from you (an angle not adequately covered by the book in my opinion). Beyond just having the idea to write about this topic, the author failed in all other respects when it comes to this book.
January 12, 2025
‘The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World’ (2024) was a book I really wanted to read and really wanted to like. But Christine Rosen didn't write a book about the Human Experience, but rather listed a series of complaints against the latest communication technologies - screens, smartphones, social networks, virtual reality, AI, etc - failing to back up most of these complaints with evidence. It's not enough to quote an article here and a study there. Evidence of social impacts, even more so in the case of psychological impacts, requires extensive studies, far beyond the normal 30, 40 or 60 individuals in isolated studies. They require careful replication in the most diverse cultures and circumstances and maintenance of conditions and evidence over time. Using isolated studies to weave causalities about the state of civilisation as a whole is naïve, to say the least. Both here and in Jonathan Haidt's other, much more popular book, ‘The Anxious Generation’ (2024), what is at issue is the normal phenomenon of ‘moral panic’, which has already happened with television, comics, popular music and even novels over two centuries ago.
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Ler o comentário mais extenso em português no Narrativa X: "A extinção da razão", https://narrativax.blogspot.com/2024/...
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Ler o comentário mais extenso em português no Narrativa X: "A extinção da razão", https://narrativax.blogspot.com/2024/...
August 7, 2024
This book cover a lot of ground! I was a bit hesitant at first because Chapter 1 is not the strongest chapter, but I kept going because I strongly believe that most technology/social media is ruining us as a society. (Yes, I am a little biased.) The rest of the book was solid, though. This book is an informative take on a lot of the ways that technology is undermining our social and cultural norms (including empathy, pleasure, and risk-taking.) I like that this book really placed an emphasis on personal and communal responsibility -- this ranges from demanding more from tech companies and government entities to choosing not engage with certain apps and smartphones. Actually, I think that this book adds to the current conversation around this topic because it is highlights the bad behavior of tech companies who make addictive products, which a lot of books on this topic also highlight, and highlights that we have a personal responsibility to address our own behavior.
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway so I got a chance to read this book before publication!
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway so I got a chance to read this book before publication!
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July 16, 2025TLDR; I was probably just not part of the target audience for this book.
I have a lot of notes! This book started off discussing how technological advances have increasingly made our human experience more disembodied (very interesting!); however, after the first three chapters it sort of abandoned that and just became a surface-deep historical account of tech products and services that have come out in the last 5 years and evidence that companies have our data. So, I would recommend this book if you want a high-level summary of the way humans use technology every day, and how that's a little scary.
One issue I had with this book is I think it fell into the "Once you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail" thing. In early chapters the author mentions that people were opposed to typewriters when they first came out because it ruined the writing experience and that really got me thinking!!! Like our disembodiment goes so far back and its interesting to think about what i might really be missing out on. But then to try to extend the argument and say that interactive museums aren't good because they're grounded in people not wanting to pay attention to static art is not really it. I had a lot of issues with her presentation of art history in general, but maybe its not worth typing out...
Okay, finally, she ends the book by saying "We need to live more like the amish" and there are just better ways to say that idk. I'm open to critique of my critique.
I have a lot of notes! This book started off discussing how technological advances have increasingly made our human experience more disembodied (very interesting!); however, after the first three chapters it sort of abandoned that and just became a surface-deep historical account of tech products and services that have come out in the last 5 years and evidence that companies have our data. So, I would recommend this book if you want a high-level summary of the way humans use technology every day, and how that's a little scary.
One issue I had with this book is I think it fell into the "Once you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail" thing. In early chapters the author mentions that people were opposed to typewriters when they first came out because it ruined the writing experience and that really got me thinking!!! Like our disembodiment goes so far back and its interesting to think about what i might really be missing out on. But then to try to extend the argument and say that interactive museums aren't good because they're grounded in people not wanting to pay attention to static art is not really it. I had a lot of issues with her presentation of art history in general, but maybe its not worth typing out...
Okay, finally, she ends the book by saying "We need to live more like the amish" and there are just better ways to say that idk. I'm open to critique of my critique.
August 2, 2025
A prophetic secular critique of tech culture.
February 21, 2025
Occasionally I read a book so bad it makes me feel so much better about my own writing. This time it's Christine Rosen's The Extinction of Experience, the "tech is destroying humanity" book du jour.
This is a very seductive argument and it has glowing blurbs from people I respect. But it's bad! Rosen argues that "mediating technologies" – mostly smartphones – mean we aren't connecting with the real world and other people in a more direct manner. Sure!
The problem is that her argument, supported by laughably broad statements and anecdotes, is basically "we need to go back". Hyperlocal weather apps? No thank you – Rosen wants "a local forecaster who understands a region's weather peculiarities" because Dark Sky "often" gets things wrong.
Firstly, how dare you impugn Dark Sky. Secondly, hyperlocal apps are doing something completely different to human forecasters.
This tendentious conflation keeps happening. Rosen bemoans how automated systems have replaced face-to-face encounters in stores and with toll collectors, then links this to the drop in face-to-face meetings with doctors.
These are not the same thing – the harms are much worse in the latter! More importantly, is a quick chat at a supermarket checkout really the best we can hope for when it comes to human interaction, where someone is literally being paid to be polite to you? For conservatives, maybe. But my *hope* is that automated systems free up time for richer forms of interaction.
Of course we get the old chestnut of "people are looking at their phones too much on the train". I won't bother including a photo of commuters all reading newspapers, you get the drift.
So now we come to the crux: secondhand experience like movies, TV, and videogames are bad, unlike real world encounters:
OK: so is chess a secondhand experience? Is playing football a secondhand experience? Is looking at a painting a secondhand experience?
There's no question that bad movies, TV, and games exist. But Rosen seems to think that *all* media invented after 1900 are bad, comparing them to paintings and architecture, which are good and real and true. This is so fucking dumb and ahistorical I'm amazed it made it to print.
Oh and it barely needs saying that there is basically NO discussion of other things that might have caused a drop in face-to-face encounters like:
- Neoliberalism
- Hypercapitalism
- Stranger danger
- Suburbanism
- Defunding of public transit and public spaces
etc etc. No, it's just the screens!!
It really is incredible that such a poorly thought-out book has received the attention it has. This should be inspiration to anyone who has a non-fiction book in them.
This is a very seductive argument and it has glowing blurbs from people I respect. But it's bad! Rosen argues that "mediating technologies" – mostly smartphones – mean we aren't connecting with the real world and other people in a more direct manner. Sure!
The problem is that her argument, supported by laughably broad statements and anecdotes, is basically "we need to go back". Hyperlocal weather apps? No thank you – Rosen wants "a local forecaster who understands a region's weather peculiarities" because Dark Sky "often" gets things wrong.
Firstly, how dare you impugn Dark Sky. Secondly, hyperlocal apps are doing something completely different to human forecasters.
This tendentious conflation keeps happening. Rosen bemoans how automated systems have replaced face-to-face encounters in stores and with toll collectors, then links this to the drop in face-to-face meetings with doctors.
These are not the same thing – the harms are much worse in the latter! More importantly, is a quick chat at a supermarket checkout really the best we can hope for when it comes to human interaction, where someone is literally being paid to be polite to you? For conservatives, maybe. But my *hope* is that automated systems free up time for richer forms of interaction.
Of course we get the old chestnut of "people are looking at their phones too much on the train". I won't bother including a photo of commuters all reading newspapers, you get the drift.
So now we come to the crux: secondhand experience like movies, TV, and videogames are bad, unlike real world encounters:
We already spend a lot of time consuming secondhand experiences presented as entertainment in the form of movies, television, and videogames. We have accelerated this consumption while also turning more of our direct experiences-with sex, art, food, game-playing and hobbies -into something immediately consumable by others. We can immerse ourselves in online games of great creativity and appeal and experience genuine feelings of accomplish-ment, even earning the respect of anonymous others with whom we play. We do this because we believe it enhances our experience of pleasure.
OK: so is chess a secondhand experience? Is playing football a secondhand experience? Is looking at a painting a secondhand experience?
There's no question that bad movies, TV, and games exist. But Rosen seems to think that *all* media invented after 1900 are bad, comparing them to paintings and architecture, which are good and real and true. This is so fucking dumb and ahistorical I'm amazed it made it to print.
Oh and it barely needs saying that there is basically NO discussion of other things that might have caused a drop in face-to-face encounters like:
- Neoliberalism
- Hypercapitalism
- Stranger danger
- Suburbanism
- Defunding of public transit and public spaces
etc etc. No, it's just the screens!!
It really is incredible that such a poorly thought-out book has received the attention it has. This should be inspiration to anyone who has a non-fiction book in them.
January 28, 2025
Overall, I feel like I cannot fairly evaluate this book. For someone new to these ideas—that technology is replacing human experience in a way that's extremely harmful—this book gives you exactly what you want. It's well written, pulls from an impressive amount of research, and has many dynamite lines and observations. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to someone wanting a first foray into tech and culture criticism.
That being said, I think this books offers disappointingly little if you are already somewhat aware of these conversations. Rosen is a good enough writer, but I thought she was a bit preachy at times. The tone of the book was more jeremiad than journalism. That's not always a bad thing, but it did kind of expose a problem for secular tech-pessimists: They deny that any religious/transcendent meaning exists, but nevertheless insists that analog human experience is intrinsically valuable for its own sake. I actually don't know that Rosen proves her premise. I happen to agree with it, but sometimes I couldn't quite make out why *she* would.
That being said, I think this books offers disappointingly little if you are already somewhat aware of these conversations. Rosen is a good enough writer, but I thought she was a bit preachy at times. The tone of the book was more jeremiad than journalism. That's not always a bad thing, but it did kind of expose a problem for secular tech-pessimists: They deny that any religious/transcendent meaning exists, but nevertheless insists that analog human experience is intrinsically valuable for its own sake. I actually don't know that Rosen proves her premise. I happen to agree with it, but sometimes I couldn't quite make out why *she* would.
January 15, 2025
Audio.
The theme of this book is that new technology (mainly smart phone technology) is creating social problems like isolation, porn addiction, indifference to violence, degradation of community, etc. It gave sometimes extreme examples; I personally don’t know anyone with an AI girlfriend.
It was a pretty generalized book too, attempting to cover a wide array of problems that stem from over reliance on technology. More of an awareness book rather than a solutions book. There are more in-depth books that go into the topics brushed upon like nature deficit disorder, the importance of writing/drawing, the importance of being fully present, bystander effect, studies on empathy and the use of smartphones, etc.
It was okay. But I prefer to read social psychology books that have a more limited focus.
Her “We should treat new technology like the Amish…” statement near the end made me realize she doesn’t have solutions other than to go back before our pocket computers. This technology is here to stay and there’s a lot of good it does do to build and enhance in-person communities and interactions.
The theme of this book is that new technology (mainly smart phone technology) is creating social problems like isolation, porn addiction, indifference to violence, degradation of community, etc. It gave sometimes extreme examples; I personally don’t know anyone with an AI girlfriend.
It was a pretty generalized book too, attempting to cover a wide array of problems that stem from over reliance on technology. More of an awareness book rather than a solutions book. There are more in-depth books that go into the topics brushed upon like nature deficit disorder, the importance of writing/drawing, the importance of being fully present, bystander effect, studies on empathy and the use of smartphones, etc.
It was okay. But I prefer to read social psychology books that have a more limited focus.
Her “We should treat new technology like the Amish…” statement near the end made me realize she doesn’t have solutions other than to go back before our pocket computers. This technology is here to stay and there’s a lot of good it does do to build and enhance in-person communities and interactions.
January 22, 2025
I'm eating this genre up. Moar please
February 25, 2025
You may have heard a teacher at some point say that studies show taking notes on a computer is not nearly as effective as taking notes by hand. This book is a continuous list of facts like that (and including it). Where this book runs into a problem is it's approach to this topic through a nostalgic drive that avoids asking how or why technology is developing the way it is. Chapter 7, on places/spaces, seems to be the closest to getting it, but the author's contention otherwise seems to mostly be that this world is due to the individual chasing the immediate pleasure of these experiences rather than recognizing how social, economic, and material forces have shaped how society currently looks. It is a bit similar to listing all of the ways humans are polluting the earth and ending it with a 20 page chapter on recycling. And, e.g., believing that platforms have taken over all aspects of social life due to people's choices requires an at best naïve faith in the neoliberal narrative of market forces. The reification of platforms is directly a reflection of our economic system. This is important to recognize because changing society's direction isn't as easy as just simplifying our lives or slowing down, and not stating that explicitly degrades the rest of the content from informing a future ideal of a radical political vision to being the alarmist and doomerist luddite ravings. The author seems to understand this in one sense—notably taking moments of inspiration from the Frankfurt School—but usually abandons this quickly in favor of mass appeal. Some good citations, though.
May 2, 2025
A lot of the ideas in this book will feel well-worn, maybe even sentimental. Some of them -- like "screens are bad, face to face is better" will be very familiar to parents of young children. In a way, having a young child makes it very obvious that a mediated world is worse than an unmediated world. Children demand to take down the glass barrier and touch the worms in the dirt. They will have an unmediated experience with an object meant for mediated experience: licking your iPhone, smearing wet fingers on the smooth expanse of your TV screen.
Yet, I think this is a very important salvo in a set of debates that society is having about phones and the internet. Rosen is "a partisan for the face to face" -- we need that. We need someone to have catalogued the ways in which public life is degraded because everyone's head is pointed at their palms and everyone's ears are plugged with earbuds. We need someone to count what is lost when we don't touch hands because we never pay with cash. There are motivated actors -- technology companies -- on the other side. On this side, we need force of humanistic thought and conviction. Maybe and probably more than we need social science studies.
After reading this book, I made a point to draw a little bit more. With my hands, and a pencil. I was redesigning my front lawn - its landscaping. I'm sure there's an AI tool that could have taken a picture of my front yard and transformed it with some simple instructions, but instead I sat and tried to draw what I currently saw and then modify it to what I want it to be. Later I drew my daughter sitting at our dining room table, paintings that her great-grandmother painted on the wall behind her. That was much less efficient than taking a picture, but it was memory-making, a worthwhile way to spend time. I want my children to have an embodied life and I want them to see me having one.
Yet, I think this is a very important salvo in a set of debates that society is having about phones and the internet. Rosen is "a partisan for the face to face" -- we need that. We need someone to have catalogued the ways in which public life is degraded because everyone's head is pointed at their palms and everyone's ears are plugged with earbuds. We need someone to count what is lost when we don't touch hands because we never pay with cash. There are motivated actors -- technology companies -- on the other side. On this side, we need force of humanistic thought and conviction. Maybe and probably more than we need social science studies.
After reading this book, I made a point to draw a little bit more. With my hands, and a pencil. I was redesigning my front lawn - its landscaping. I'm sure there's an AI tool that could have taken a picture of my front yard and transformed it with some simple instructions, but instead I sat and tried to draw what I currently saw and then modify it to what I want it to be. Later I drew my daughter sitting at our dining room table, paintings that her great-grandmother painted on the wall behind her. That was much less efficient than taking a picture, but it was memory-making, a worthwhile way to spend time. I want my children to have an embodied life and I want them to see me having one.
Read
July 27, 2025anecdotes, lots of anecdotes. ultimately a good book with the right skepticism about technology. the arguments maybe could have been stronger but the overall impression is good. it makes me want to be more conscious of how I engage with the world, and I have been on my phone less since reading it.
September 15, 2025
I’m so thankful Jonathan Haidt mentioned this book on his Substack. Written from a secular point of view, but really achieves a true, good, poignant analysis of our culture.
December 24, 2025
Ugh! Wow. This book made me realize that Black Mirror episodes are appearing less and less far-fetched.
I can’t even put into my own words the way this book transformed my thinking about social media and the digital world.
I’ll just bombard you with quotes.
***
“More and more people mistrust their own experiences. More and more people create their own realities rather than live in the world around them. We can no longer assume that reality is a matter of consensus” (2).
“If earlier technologies were an extension of our senses, today’s technologies train us to mistrust our own senses and rely instead on technology” (6).
“We relate to our world through information about it rather than direct experience with it” (17).
“Attention to one another as embodied creatures is central to what makes us human…and to give attention to others we must spend time in their physical presence. Our technologies, as brilliant as they are, cannot satisfy all of those needs” (53).
“‘We have changed our understanding of the human condition as one of a vessel that needs to be filled.’…our devices eliminate boredom not by teaching us how to cope with it but by outsourcing our attention so that we don’t have to cope with it” (95).
“Being human means coping with the liminal, those in-between moments of life when we must endure uneasy or uncomfortable experiences…’Every man rushes elsewhere and toward the future, since no man has reached his own self,’ Montaigne warned…Arriving at oneself, figuring out who you are, what you love, what you think about your world and the people in it—these are experiences that require time, patience, boredom, daydreaming, and anticipation to discover” (108-9).
“Capturing an experience while you are having it alters the way you experience it, as Wendell Berry’s poem ‘The Vacation’ describes. It tells the story of a man who films his entire vacation…The poem ends with a sharp reminder of the cost of this documentation: ‘But he would not be in it. He would never be in it’” (152).
Finally, “If we are to reclaim human virtues and save our most deeply rooted human experiences from extinction, we must be willing to place limits on the more extreme transformative projects proposed by our techno-enthusiasts, not as a means of stifling innovation but as a commitment to our shared humanity. Only then can we live freely as the embodied quirky, contradictory, resilient, creative human beings we are” (218).
I can’t even put into my own words the way this book transformed my thinking about social media and the digital world.
I’ll just bombard you with quotes.
***
“More and more people mistrust their own experiences. More and more people create their own realities rather than live in the world around them. We can no longer assume that reality is a matter of consensus” (2).
“If earlier technologies were an extension of our senses, today’s technologies train us to mistrust our own senses and rely instead on technology” (6).
“We relate to our world through information about it rather than direct experience with it” (17).
“Attention to one another as embodied creatures is central to what makes us human…and to give attention to others we must spend time in their physical presence. Our technologies, as brilliant as they are, cannot satisfy all of those needs” (53).
“‘We have changed our understanding of the human condition as one of a vessel that needs to be filled.’…our devices eliminate boredom not by teaching us how to cope with it but by outsourcing our attention so that we don’t have to cope with it” (95).
“Being human means coping with the liminal, those in-between moments of life when we must endure uneasy or uncomfortable experiences…’Every man rushes elsewhere and toward the future, since no man has reached his own self,’ Montaigne warned…Arriving at oneself, figuring out who you are, what you love, what you think about your world and the people in it—these are experiences that require time, patience, boredom, daydreaming, and anticipation to discover” (108-9).
“Capturing an experience while you are having it alters the way you experience it, as Wendell Berry’s poem ‘The Vacation’ describes. It tells the story of a man who films his entire vacation…The poem ends with a sharp reminder of the cost of this documentation: ‘But he would not be in it. He would never be in it’” (152).
Finally, “If we are to reclaim human virtues and save our most deeply rooted human experiences from extinction, we must be willing to place limits on the more extreme transformative projects proposed by our techno-enthusiasts, not as a means of stifling innovation but as a commitment to our shared humanity. Only then can we live freely as the embodied quirky, contradictory, resilient, creative human beings we are” (218).
April 15, 2025
2.5
Typical “back in my day“ lecture. In addition, I find that the author's findings and the studies mentioned relate exclusively to the United States and (as I observe it) are less applicable to people from Europe, for example.
Typical “back in my day“ lecture. In addition, I find that the author's findings and the studies mentioned relate exclusively to the United States and (as I observe it) are less applicable to people from Europe, for example.
March 16, 2025
First let’s address the elephant in the room of how ironic it is to be writing an online review on my iPhone to upload to an app for this book specifically 😂
“A large portion of our lives has already been colonized by technology..”
“…what’s lost is not as quantifiable as what’s gained… we can’t quantify the loss of eye contact between strangers or the kind of public social interactions… that used to exist but are now rapidly disappearing from the landscape”
This book spoke to a lot of what I’ve been feeling for a long time- and as someone who’s an elder millennial who had a public-facing service-based job from 2008-2018 (plus I would take public transportation), I noticed the shifts as it gradually happened where public transportation got quieter as people stopped talking to each other. And people in restaurants being glued to their phones while they’re eating, even if they have company or THIER BABY with them.
It worries me how disembodied technology makes us and how that issue seems like it’s going to get worse and I don’t think this book did a good enough job at illustrating what a dire situation this is.
I was surprised that the chapter on pleasure focused mostly on how we experience art these days (and a bit on travel) and spoke more briefly about our experiences with food and sex.
Like many of the reviews here, I also wish this book went more into solutions. In the last 5 pages, some things were suggested that are echoed in other recent publications that speak about technology addiction like changing legislation for example.
Again, I think the direness of this issue wasn’t illustrated enough. I wish this book went more into how society is being fractured and what this means for our economies and freedom moving forward. How much we’re being surveilled (and how that will only get worse) was barely spoken about. The enormous amounts of money being made by this fracturing of society and how those billionaires get to run rampant as they dismantle every opportunity to live an embodied life wasn’t talked about enough.
Lastly, unless I missed it earlier in the book- Peter Thiel isn’t mentioned until the last two pages who is a big investor in most of the technologies taking over our lives which the book doesn’t mention. I found that ironic- the book missed a chance there to talk about the deeper layers of this problem and possible future outcomes here like maybe technofeudalism
Overall, fascinating info however it could have gone deeper into what is really going on & who it’s benefiting (billionaires), how big this problem really is and what future outcomes will happen if nothing changes, and more fleshed out solutions
“A large portion of our lives has already been colonized by technology..”
“…what’s lost is not as quantifiable as what’s gained… we can’t quantify the loss of eye contact between strangers or the kind of public social interactions… that used to exist but are now rapidly disappearing from the landscape”
This book spoke to a lot of what I’ve been feeling for a long time- and as someone who’s an elder millennial who had a public-facing service-based job from 2008-2018 (plus I would take public transportation), I noticed the shifts as it gradually happened where public transportation got quieter as people stopped talking to each other. And people in restaurants being glued to their phones while they’re eating, even if they have company or THIER BABY with them.
It worries me how disembodied technology makes us and how that issue seems like it’s going to get worse and I don’t think this book did a good enough job at illustrating what a dire situation this is.
I was surprised that the chapter on pleasure focused mostly on how we experience art these days (and a bit on travel) and spoke more briefly about our experiences with food and sex.
Like many of the reviews here, I also wish this book went more into solutions. In the last 5 pages, some things were suggested that are echoed in other recent publications that speak about technology addiction like changing legislation for example.
Again, I think the direness of this issue wasn’t illustrated enough. I wish this book went more into how society is being fractured and what this means for our economies and freedom moving forward. How much we’re being surveilled (and how that will only get worse) was barely spoken about. The enormous amounts of money being made by this fracturing of society and how those billionaires get to run rampant as they dismantle every opportunity to live an embodied life wasn’t talked about enough.
Lastly, unless I missed it earlier in the book- Peter Thiel isn’t mentioned until the last two pages who is a big investor in most of the technologies taking over our lives which the book doesn’t mention. I found that ironic- the book missed a chance there to talk about the deeper layers of this problem and possible future outcomes here like maybe technofeudalism
Overall, fascinating info however it could have gone deeper into what is really going on & who it’s benefiting (billionaires), how big this problem really is and what future outcomes will happen if nothing changes, and more fleshed out solutions
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 30, 2025
My question is: why don’t I care? Why am I happy to watch a million reels of people cooking foods I’ll never try? Why do I save workouts I never attempt? Why am I content with this? Why, at the end of my days, do I desire this time to scroll? I can name and number the places in my life where I have settled for vicariousness. But the solution must be to care. To care that I am 28 for only a few months more. To care that one day my body won’t move like this. To care that one day these faces will pass away. To care that there are good things to eat and new faces to see and ideas to consider in the banality of the day. I think the answer is to believe that reality is meaningful, that all of this matters, and that it’s limited.
This book spanned a lot of ideas. I’m sitting with the app-ification of everything. And this need I have to collect data, to store information, to offload my memory from my own mind.
I’d say it’s worth a read. And reality is worth a passing glance.
This book spanned a lot of ideas. I’m sitting with the app-ification of everything. And this need I have to collect data, to store information, to offload my memory from my own mind.
I’d say it’s worth a read. And reality is worth a passing glance.
October 30, 2025
One of the more frustrating reads I've experienced in 2025. Its not entirely devoid of worthwhile observations, but its extremely lazy in its reasoning.
The book is of course about the nature of human experience. In the introduction it defines experiences as "the ways we become acquainted with the world." So far so good. Simple, concise, sensible.
The author then pushes further to name the problem- "Certain experiences... are fading from our lives." Why is this a problem? "Because these experiences are what, historically, have helped us form and nurture a shared reality as human beings." And why are they fading? Because of the ways technology is changing how we experience the world. They have "altsered our understanding of reality."
Or as the author puts it later, "reality has competition."
Part of the authors general thesis is that "the human condition is embodied." A later chapter will unpack how this relates directly to the spaces we occupy. Further, we are shaped by the history of our experiences, physically and mentally (although for the authors worldview these are the same things). Part of the authors aim, weirdly enough, appears to be this disconnect between the enlightenments shift towards scientism, while beliving that the problem with todays technological age is that we've forgotten we have bodies. Which becomes a weird and contradictory commitment to carry through the books devleoping chapters.
Or at least it feels weird until a small statment near the beginning, arguing that embodied experience means our need for the "finite." This sentiment becomes the final word of the book. Technology is seen as an unnattural need to be immortal, while life is about embracing finitude. On one level I actually think the author is pressing in the right direction by challenging the myth of progress. He cites the need to place limits on progress so that our humanity can reclaim and preserve what it is. Or to put it in other direct words- "we need a new humanism." And in yet another example of the weirdness of the authors reasoning, this secular humanism stands at odds with the very enlightenment ideals that gave it its birth. This appeal to humanism then becomes the foundation of these grand leaps in logic, wanting to reclaim something the author embeds in naturalism, while similtaneously rejecting the things that bind humans to it. There's this odd logical disconnect between how the author wants to elevate the value of the human experience and the author's unjustified assumptions about what this human experience should look like and why it should be valued. Of course the primary emphasis is on our social development, noting how we are loosing things like facial recognition, the art of waiting, the ability to occupy spaces, the ability to learn specific skills.
Within this comes all of these underlying assumptions about the human experience that are subtly made out to be more than their materialist nature can claim on its own. Which is to say, the argument here requires the authors assumed values (or value system) to be true in order to work. And these values want to elevate nature while also elevating the human experience as somehow transcending it. Because this argument isn't logical or rational, its very difficult to get on board with the authors complaints about the technology this human exceptionalism brings about. After all, if the author wants to say human experience is greater than nature because of the new world brought about by our social species, why can't the same reasoning just apply to technology? Why do these supposed elements of the human experience need to elevated as being superior to this new technological world? The author would want us to believe its because there is tanglible evidence that we are less happy, but again, defining happiness or flourishing is not something the author does. There are functional definitions, utilitarian definitions, but that only binds one to the natural world, it doesn't actually give a rational basis to say why or how human must operate the same way in a technological age.
To be clear, I have my own way into the authors essential conclusions. I agree with the authors critique of the myth of progress and its commitment to scientism. I just don't think the authors argument would satisfy most of the arguments within secular humanism. The authors commitment to secular humanism undercuts the premise. It certainly doesn't satisfy arguments made outside of secular humanism. And part of what I think is the least persuasive is the authors imposed dichotomy between the finiteness of the human experience and the aims of technology of going after the problems that finitness represent. You can't just draw an arbitrary line between what you want to go after and what you don't. You can't just say we want finitness and then want to pick and choose when to apply technology to attend to things like suffering and sickness and death, all qualities of finiteness. That's not coherent.
The book is of course about the nature of human experience. In the introduction it defines experiences as "the ways we become acquainted with the world." So far so good. Simple, concise, sensible.
The author then pushes further to name the problem- "Certain experiences... are fading from our lives." Why is this a problem? "Because these experiences are what, historically, have helped us form and nurture a shared reality as human beings." And why are they fading? Because of the ways technology is changing how we experience the world. They have "altsered our understanding of reality."
Or as the author puts it later, "reality has competition."
Part of the authors general thesis is that "the human condition is embodied." A later chapter will unpack how this relates directly to the spaces we occupy. Further, we are shaped by the history of our experiences, physically and mentally (although for the authors worldview these are the same things). Part of the authors aim, weirdly enough, appears to be this disconnect between the enlightenments shift towards scientism, while beliving that the problem with todays technological age is that we've forgotten we have bodies. Which becomes a weird and contradictory commitment to carry through the books devleoping chapters.
Or at least it feels weird until a small statment near the beginning, arguing that embodied experience means our need for the "finite." This sentiment becomes the final word of the book. Technology is seen as an unnattural need to be immortal, while life is about embracing finitude. On one level I actually think the author is pressing in the right direction by challenging the myth of progress. He cites the need to place limits on progress so that our humanity can reclaim and preserve what it is. Or to put it in other direct words- "we need a new humanism." And in yet another example of the weirdness of the authors reasoning, this secular humanism stands at odds with the very enlightenment ideals that gave it its birth. This appeal to humanism then becomes the foundation of these grand leaps in logic, wanting to reclaim something the author embeds in naturalism, while similtaneously rejecting the things that bind humans to it. There's this odd logical disconnect between how the author wants to elevate the value of the human experience and the author's unjustified assumptions about what this human experience should look like and why it should be valued. Of course the primary emphasis is on our social development, noting how we are loosing things like facial recognition, the art of waiting, the ability to occupy spaces, the ability to learn specific skills.
Within this comes all of these underlying assumptions about the human experience that are subtly made out to be more than their materialist nature can claim on its own. Which is to say, the argument here requires the authors assumed values (or value system) to be true in order to work. And these values want to elevate nature while also elevating the human experience as somehow transcending it. Because this argument isn't logical or rational, its very difficult to get on board with the authors complaints about the technology this human exceptionalism brings about. After all, if the author wants to say human experience is greater than nature because of the new world brought about by our social species, why can't the same reasoning just apply to technology? Why do these supposed elements of the human experience need to elevated as being superior to this new technological world? The author would want us to believe its because there is tanglible evidence that we are less happy, but again, defining happiness or flourishing is not something the author does. There are functional definitions, utilitarian definitions, but that only binds one to the natural world, it doesn't actually give a rational basis to say why or how human must operate the same way in a technological age.
To be clear, I have my own way into the authors essential conclusions. I agree with the authors critique of the myth of progress and its commitment to scientism. I just don't think the authors argument would satisfy most of the arguments within secular humanism. The authors commitment to secular humanism undercuts the premise. It certainly doesn't satisfy arguments made outside of secular humanism. And part of what I think is the least persuasive is the authors imposed dichotomy between the finiteness of the human experience and the aims of technology of going after the problems that finitness represent. You can't just draw an arbitrary line between what you want to go after and what you don't. You can't just say we want finitness and then want to pick and choose when to apply technology to attend to things like suffering and sickness and death, all qualities of finiteness. That's not coherent.
June 24, 2025
Rosen offers an invitation to push back against so many of the ways our real experiences have been outsourced. We joke a lot about technology, the digital revolution, media, the smartphone and their affects on our world. Rosen is deadly serious about all this without being hopeless, which is why this book is a fresh voice that is worth hearing.
*** I loved so much of this book, but there are two reason it’s not five stars and won’t become THE book that I recommend to others on the issue.
(1) Her reported research wavers between precision and generalization.
(2) She too often assumes Darwinian natural selection, which to me is a weak worldview position to back up such a good thesis. If the next stage of unguided evolution is brain-rotted zombies with screens then why stop it? The pursuit of the true, good and beautiful made possible by real world experience rests much better on a theistic, and even Christian view of things in which human beings have a defined telos.
*** I loved so much of this book, but there are two reason it’s not five stars and won’t become THE book that I recommend to others on the issue.
(1) Her reported research wavers between precision and generalization.
(2) She too often assumes Darwinian natural selection, which to me is a weak worldview position to back up such a good thesis. If the next stage of unguided evolution is brain-rotted zombies with screens then why stop it? The pursuit of the true, good and beautiful made possible by real world experience rests much better on a theistic, and even Christian view of things in which human beings have a defined telos.
December 24, 2024
More like a 3.5, rounded up. Does a great job drawing awareness to all the effects technology has on the human experience beyond the obvious “social media is bad” line of thinking—which it also covers. My favorite section was Ch. 5, “The Sixth Sense,” on technology’s impact on and interactions with emotions. Wish there were more practical solutions an suggestions beyond the conclusion, in which the main suggestion was to “treat new technology like Amish do,” that is, with intense skepticism and consideration for the impact on the community.
August 5, 2025
“A life not lived anywhere, but arranged for viewing.” This is an uncomfortable challenge for modern readers. Are we okay with the trajectory of technology mediation numbing our experience and quality of life? For those of us with kids, how do we negotiate this? At times, this can be a dense read. But the quality and impact of Rosen’s writing does not need to correlate with ease of consumption. Rosen confirms several changes our family has made, and affirms changes to come.
December 24, 2025
The book is well-written. As others have mentioned this is a great book for those who have never thought or read about the topic. Then it would be quite interesting. Unfortunately I was already painfully aware of our lack of embodied experience and rise in detached mediated experiences.
Also, the audiobook reader sounds like AI which is very ironic. 😕
Also, the audiobook reader sounds like AI which is very ironic. 😕
November 9, 2024
Admittedly, there are parts of this book that just feel like a curmudgeony Gen Xer indulgently complaining about the way things have changed, reminiscing about a past world they understood better; and other parts draw conclusions based on insufficient and sometimes even anecdotal evidence.
But most of what it is here is very good (even if Rosen does not tend to be very solution-oriented in her critique of the technological world). And in the end, it did exactly what I wanted it to do and expected from it: it gave me a little bit more of a distaste, at least for a little while, for the phone that always seeks to enslave with cheap substitutions for real experience.
But most of what it is here is very good (even if Rosen does not tend to be very solution-oriented in her critique of the technological world). And in the end, it did exactly what I wanted it to do and expected from it: it gave me a little bit more of a distaste, at least for a little while, for the phone that always seeks to enslave with cheap substitutions for real experience.
March 25, 2025
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle
December 16, 2024
Methodically, determinedly, and convincingly, Christine Rosen walks the reader through gallery after gallery showcasing how we have allowed technology into our lives. “Allowed” is the operative word, because we have done so willingly, with enthusiasm for the ways our lives are “enhanced” by all the wearables, algorithms and screens that we take for granted. This is no luddite screed. From the printing press to the photograph to online dating, we have always been of two minds when new technologies upend our lives. So the operative question is: how is this time different?
She builds her case by digging deep in different areas. The cellphone has caused an epidemic of “civil inattention,” in which we treat each other as objects registered but not otherwise engaged with (38). In the process we experience “negative social well-being,” feelings of inadequacy and being out of step (45). In evolutionary terms it turns out that humans crave physical proximity and are lost without it. We have also dropped a slew of embodied, physical practices that used to define us as human—handwriting, drawing, tinkering, unstructured play, and day-dreaming, all the arts which subtly taught us patience and perseverance. Instead we automatically opt for speed, novelty, and convenience in every realm. We no longer have the patience to wait in line. While not advocating communist era lines for every commodity, Rosen reminds us of Auden’s view that impatience is the only cardinal sin. It is impatience which drives us out of Paradise, and out of harmony with our surroundings (83). The disappearance of patience has forced us into an eternal present, a bias toward “nowness,” our horizons constricted into the time it takes to upload a web page. As Herbert Simon notes, we suffer from a wealth of information and a poverty of attention (95).
But Rosen’s overall point is that experience itself is being refashioned. We are no longer content to have experienced travel. It must now be confirmed through a mountain of selfies. We are no longer satisfied with sticky, messy sex. It is now channeled into porn, which users say is also satisfying. The body is no longer needed for experience. Experience is undergone in non-physical spaces created for us by …you guessed it, Big Tech. We go on field-trip simulations instead of messy, boring bus rides.
Rosen’s work amounts to a big red flag. We should not allow our “collective complacency” to lead us into the great slide down the hill of no return. We are about to plunge headlong into that pool Walter Benjamin labelled the poverty of experience. In the process we are easily distracted, impatient to a fault, unable to connect to place, and obsessing over internet-centered issues. Experience is now all about information (17), not sensory contact. As a result what it means to be human is changing. Mirroring an obsession found in tons of sci-fi, we have missed that we are becoming less human even as we obsess about whether robots will be human.
Rosen gradually reveals what she means by human. It turns out to be a well-fleshed philosophical position. Humans accept that experience is messy. Not every interaction will be seamless. Chance and rupture, as she quotes Richard Sennett, are part of life. Travel involves frustration and serendipity. It also involves other humans—“breathing the same air, sensing one another’s unspoken feelings…being attuned to one another’s gestures”—in other words, all the things we learn in our crucial first years of life. Are these elements suddenly not part of being human? For me the most meaningful point is the importance she places on a wandering mind. “Openness to experience,” something I have always assumed was a trait of my (Baby Boomer) generation, involves a slew of related psychological traits. These are listed in a quote by psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman as:
“self-awareness, creative incubation, improvisation and evaluation memory consolidation, autobiographical planning, goal driven thought, future planning, retrieval of deeply personal memories, reflective consideration of the meaning of events and experiences, simulating the Perspex time of another person, evaluating the implications of self and others’ emotional reactions, moral reasoning, and reflective compassion” (97).
And we are giving that up in favor of what, efficiency? A bias toward instant gratification, of “nowness?” No thanks.
The ideal condition of humanity, Rosen implies, is one in which we have the opportunity, the time, and the right to enter “flow,” a state of total absorption (96). So how does total absorption in your cellphone not equal flow? Digital interaction, it turns out, does not evoke two key humanity-defining attributes—patience and empathy. Without these the absorption is ephemeral, superficial. With these two qualities, which can only be built up over time, a mature human can choose total absorption. Without, we are seduced into a state of absorbed dependency.
The failure to inculcate patience and empathy leads to a radically flat emotional landscape. We now prefer less interaction with others. We have faux, “one-click” empathy. We rush through public spaces oblivious to others. We don’t have time to reflect on feelings. They’re too messy anyway—why bother? Let someone else do the birthday party. But it is exactly the contingent, complex nature of emotional interactions that creates our sense of self as human. This is the poetry of life.
Rosen quotes Lewis Mumford’s insight that technological change alone does not define an era. Each era is characterized by a “reorientation of wishes, habits, ideas and goals” (24). Is she calling for a wholesale repudiation of technology? Certainly not. But conscious choosing is called for, instead of letting Big Tech lead us into our own extinction experience.
Rosen is at her best in the chapters on mediated pleasures. We are increasingly experiencing life through digital platforms, leading to what Ian Kerr describes as the”evidentiary society” (175). No trip is real without selfies to prove it. In fact the real thing is often a let-down. Pornography raises the bar so high that real-life sex can never measure up. This same “forced mediation” is now appearing everywhere. We can ski, hunt or bird watch virtually, and we accept virtual balconies on cruise ships without batting an eye. At the same time we have lost our appetite for the “vague bewilderment” or the sense of the ineffable that unplanned travel can bring. And we sense that our curated lives are becoming spice-less, bland.
Yet I am not overly pessimistic. The impact of online tech on emotional habits, while real, seems like something we are already managing. My son and his wife, both busy doctors, pick up their phones at home only to answer a call or to schedule something. Otherwise their phones remain face-down as they interact with family members and go about their many chores. In other words, surfing the web or hanging out on Tik Tok are simply not options if you lead a busy life. Nor are the enticements of the internet are not enough on their own. There is a whole generation of young people able to keep their distance from mediated experience.
The problem may lie with Gen Z, those born after just before and after 2000, whose lives have been massively impacted by social media. Leaving aside the COVID experience, I think it’s too soon to simply write this generation off as hopelessly addicted, their brains puddles of mush. Like previous generations they can find a happy medium. Humans are adaptive. And it will take more than bright shiny tech toys to reshape human nature. Rosen has given us a thoughtful, systematic warning about the unthinking adoption of online habits and enticements. With the help of such thinkers, we can handle it.
She builds her case by digging deep in different areas. The cellphone has caused an epidemic of “civil inattention,” in which we treat each other as objects registered but not otherwise engaged with (38). In the process we experience “negative social well-being,” feelings of inadequacy and being out of step (45). In evolutionary terms it turns out that humans crave physical proximity and are lost without it. We have also dropped a slew of embodied, physical practices that used to define us as human—handwriting, drawing, tinkering, unstructured play, and day-dreaming, all the arts which subtly taught us patience and perseverance. Instead we automatically opt for speed, novelty, and convenience in every realm. We no longer have the patience to wait in line. While not advocating communist era lines for every commodity, Rosen reminds us of Auden’s view that impatience is the only cardinal sin. It is impatience which drives us out of Paradise, and out of harmony with our surroundings (83). The disappearance of patience has forced us into an eternal present, a bias toward “nowness,” our horizons constricted into the time it takes to upload a web page. As Herbert Simon notes, we suffer from a wealth of information and a poverty of attention (95).
But Rosen’s overall point is that experience itself is being refashioned. We are no longer content to have experienced travel. It must now be confirmed through a mountain of selfies. We are no longer satisfied with sticky, messy sex. It is now channeled into porn, which users say is also satisfying. The body is no longer needed for experience. Experience is undergone in non-physical spaces created for us by …you guessed it, Big Tech. We go on field-trip simulations instead of messy, boring bus rides.
Rosen’s work amounts to a big red flag. We should not allow our “collective complacency” to lead us into the great slide down the hill of no return. We are about to plunge headlong into that pool Walter Benjamin labelled the poverty of experience. In the process we are easily distracted, impatient to a fault, unable to connect to place, and obsessing over internet-centered issues. Experience is now all about information (17), not sensory contact. As a result what it means to be human is changing. Mirroring an obsession found in tons of sci-fi, we have missed that we are becoming less human even as we obsess about whether robots will be human.
Rosen gradually reveals what she means by human. It turns out to be a well-fleshed philosophical position. Humans accept that experience is messy. Not every interaction will be seamless. Chance and rupture, as she quotes Richard Sennett, are part of life. Travel involves frustration and serendipity. It also involves other humans—“breathing the same air, sensing one another’s unspoken feelings…being attuned to one another’s gestures”—in other words, all the things we learn in our crucial first years of life. Are these elements suddenly not part of being human? For me the most meaningful point is the importance she places on a wandering mind. “Openness to experience,” something I have always assumed was a trait of my (Baby Boomer) generation, involves a slew of related psychological traits. These are listed in a quote by psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman as:
“self-awareness, creative incubation, improvisation and evaluation memory consolidation, autobiographical planning, goal driven thought, future planning, retrieval of deeply personal memories, reflective consideration of the meaning of events and experiences, simulating the Perspex time of another person, evaluating the implications of self and others’ emotional reactions, moral reasoning, and reflective compassion” (97).
And we are giving that up in favor of what, efficiency? A bias toward instant gratification, of “nowness?” No thanks.
The ideal condition of humanity, Rosen implies, is one in which we have the opportunity, the time, and the right to enter “flow,” a state of total absorption (96). So how does total absorption in your cellphone not equal flow? Digital interaction, it turns out, does not evoke two key humanity-defining attributes—patience and empathy. Without these the absorption is ephemeral, superficial. With these two qualities, which can only be built up over time, a mature human can choose total absorption. Without, we are seduced into a state of absorbed dependency.
The failure to inculcate patience and empathy leads to a radically flat emotional landscape. We now prefer less interaction with others. We have faux, “one-click” empathy. We rush through public spaces oblivious to others. We don’t have time to reflect on feelings. They’re too messy anyway—why bother? Let someone else do the birthday party. But it is exactly the contingent, complex nature of emotional interactions that creates our sense of self as human. This is the poetry of life.
Rosen quotes Lewis Mumford’s insight that technological change alone does not define an era. Each era is characterized by a “reorientation of wishes, habits, ideas and goals” (24). Is she calling for a wholesale repudiation of technology? Certainly not. But conscious choosing is called for, instead of letting Big Tech lead us into our own extinction experience.
Rosen is at her best in the chapters on mediated pleasures. We are increasingly experiencing life through digital platforms, leading to what Ian Kerr describes as the”evidentiary society” (175). No trip is real without selfies to prove it. In fact the real thing is often a let-down. Pornography raises the bar so high that real-life sex can never measure up. This same “forced mediation” is now appearing everywhere. We can ski, hunt or bird watch virtually, and we accept virtual balconies on cruise ships without batting an eye. At the same time we have lost our appetite for the “vague bewilderment” or the sense of the ineffable that unplanned travel can bring. And we sense that our curated lives are becoming spice-less, bland.
Yet I am not overly pessimistic. The impact of online tech on emotional habits, while real, seems like something we are already managing. My son and his wife, both busy doctors, pick up their phones at home only to answer a call or to schedule something. Otherwise their phones remain face-down as they interact with family members and go about their many chores. In other words, surfing the web or hanging out on Tik Tok are simply not options if you lead a busy life. Nor are the enticements of the internet are not enough on their own. There is a whole generation of young people able to keep their distance from mediated experience.
The problem may lie with Gen Z, those born after just before and after 2000, whose lives have been massively impacted by social media. Leaving aside the COVID experience, I think it’s too soon to simply write this generation off as hopelessly addicted, their brains puddles of mush. Like previous generations they can find a happy medium. Humans are adaptive. And it will take more than bright shiny tech toys to reshape human nature. Rosen has given us a thoughtful, systematic warning about the unthinking adoption of online habits and enticements. With the help of such thinkers, we can handle it.
October 26, 2025
2.5 stars. Incredibly bland. Just a string of quotes, facts, and boring anecdotes, with basically no original ideas from the author. At most we get a few pages about a trip to Disney Land as they muse about the experience of waiting in lines. It all felt like a generic TED talk turned into a book.
The author clearly sees the loss of many 'human' experiences in our modern world to be a bad and increasing trend. I don't disagree with this thesis by any means. In fact, I read books largely because books are much higher quality and more meaningful than the vast majority of other media we can consume today. Good books teach you something about being human. This book, despite explicitly about that 'being human' feeling, ironically fails to even come close to doing that.
The author clearly sees the loss of many 'human' experiences in our modern world to be a bad and increasing trend. I don't disagree with this thesis by any means. In fact, I read books largely because books are much higher quality and more meaningful than the vast majority of other media we can consume today. Good books teach you something about being human. This book, despite explicitly about that 'being human' feeling, ironically fails to even come close to doing that.
October 13, 2024
Though the narration was perfectly fine, nothing stellar but the topics at hand are a little lack luster in part. The cover does not portray the overall concept at all. And talking about getting back to community and person to person connections in a world, country so divided needs more solutions than this book offered. Honestly? I felt like some one was complaining about the internet to me and lack of privacy while snapping and posting a selfie. Don’t feel bad if you pass on this, but if you read or listen just know it’ll be a fast read, or a good audio book to be on in the background…..while you doom scroll and text your mom.
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