Has Tech Robbed Us of Our Sensory Lives?

Illustration by Ariel Davis Save this story Save this story Save this story Save this story You’re reading Infinite Scroll, Kyle Chayka’s weekly column on how technology shapes culture.There’s a genre of Tik Tok video that you might call analogcore. Not quite the calming, whispered monologues of A.S.M.R., this content instead soothes by showing off intricate physical handiwork. I have come across creators who repair traditional British thatched roofs, carve bowls out of tree trunks, or tile luxurious bathroom showers. For the viewer, the satisfaction comes through vicarious tactile sensation—witnessing how the thatch gets smacked in by a flat, hammerlike device, or the way a tile slots perfectly into a shelf niche. The way we consume such content, by swiping idly on a glass screen, stands in stark contrast with the content of the content, the skillful manipulation of resolutely tangible material. It’s ironic, and a bit dystopian, this disjuncture, but I’m entranced by the videos anyway. Ian Bogost, a professor, author, and columnist at The Atlantic, would say that, by watching these crafts, I’m looking for “gratification,” or “the lost joy of everyday interactions,” the subject of his new book, “The Small Stuff.”

Bogost argues that phones, apps, and other forms of digital mediation have removed us from the world of sensory delights that surrounds us, whether it’s the chunky mechanism of a car’s shift knob (which has been replaced by a Tesla-style touch screen) or the wet, sticky smoosh of masonry paint (which we might hire a TaskRabbit worker to apply to our walls instead of doing it ourselves). The author recommends the aforementioned masonry paint to a friend, and lavishes poetic description on it in order to pinpoint the gratification it offers: “The sonic delight of that squelchy sound, the tactile charm of feeling the brush produce it, the visual appeal of watching the red-brown bricks turn to snowy white.” Bogost’s joy is infectious. As I was reading his slim, efficient book, I was newly attuned to the sensory experiences in my own life, from the flicky, card-like thinness of tickets to a baseball game to the productive clatter of my refrigerator’s ice machine. The thrust of “The Small Stuff” is that, by focussing on these tiny, mundane pleasures, we can resist the encroachment of what Bogost calls “dematerialization”—the shallowness of automated interaction.

Bogost’s book taps into a familiar strain of digital exhaustion. Nearly two decades after the release of the first iPhone, always-online technology has become a scourge. It sucks, in a way, that this one device has taken over activities as varied as entering the subway, paying for things, navigating streets, and chatting with our loved ones. The phone’s frictionless services are phenomenally convenient and yet lacking in texture; they flatten experience because they all take place through the same smooth, rectangular portal. Embossed business cards, account ledgers, bins of bolts at the hardware store—all are pleasurable physical artifacts that have been more or less outmoded by technology. Bogost is adept at pinpointing the losses that come with the digital ease of Amazon, Uber Eats, and Netflix: “Home has become a prison of convenience that we need special help to escape.”