“You may wonder what there’s left to say about smartphones being bad,” said Angus Colwell in The Telegraph. It turns out, however, that there’s “plenty”.
In this “engaging and snappy book“, Christine Rosen, an American academic, explains how the devices – and digital technology more generally – prevent us engaging “via our senses with the world as it is”. Her central point is that much is lost when experience is mediated through technology. Most obviously, when people have their heads in smartphones, they cannot engage with their surroundings. But Rosen also explains how digital technology is making us “coddled” and risk-averse. Nowadays, we no longer pick restaurants based on how they feel “from the street”: in a world of Google Reviews, to risk a single “bad meal out” is “something that simply cannot happen”.
Likewise, when we choose what music to listen to, or where to go on holiday, we are likely influenced by algorithms, which present us with choices based on “what we liked in the past”. Many people doubtless find that reassuring – but Rosen suggests it makes our lives predictable, and stops us from experiencing the “shock of the new”.
“It’s not just phones and laptops that Rosen wants us to consider casting aside,” said Ceci Browning in The Times. Also on her blacklist are “smart speakers, wireless earbuds, sports watches, temperature sensors” – all of which stop us from appreciating “the sights, sounds and sensations that make us feel human”.
Yet her book is no “Luddite manifesto”: she acknowledges the benefits that digital technology has brought, such as being able to stay in touch with family members overseas. The real task, she says, is to “restore a healthier status quo”. Her book, full of “razor-sharp analysis”, is a useful step in that direction.