Technology, Delayed Gratification, And Cities
So this piece—“A Time We Never Knew,” on smartphones and society—made the rounds recently on social media (which I guess is ironic). I read it with a bit of trepidation, because I never know what the provenance of an independent writer is, and often this stuff veers off into…questionable territory. (I’m thinking of the “LED lightbulbs are a symbol of the decline of the West” guy, for example.) But this isn’t one of those pieces. It expresses what I think a lot of people my age feel about the ubiquity of phones, cameras, apps, location tracking, the internet, social media—all of it, the constant connectivity and the difficulty of extricating yourself from the things themselves, and also—a distinction with a difference—the expectation of them. This is the core of it:
I feel something similar when I talk about how America used to be a properly urban country, when I see these century-plus-old photos of bustling downtowns which are now freeway dead zones, streets full of people, trolleys running through the middle. This sense that we had something we didn’t know, but also this sense that it’s almost impossible to know that we’ll one day miss it. Maybe it’s just grass is greener. Maybe it’s impossible to choose to forego something. Or as Katy Perry sang once, “I miss you more than I loved you.” There are these habits of mind that I run into that feel like looking at human fallenness. Things built into our human “operating system,” by sin or evolution or both, that we can discern yet can barely resist. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Can we do anything about it? Maybe:
I just saw this tweet—literally as I was writing this piece—from Emily Hamilton, a housing scholar (though I’m the one who relates her tweet to anything to do with housing): There’s something deep here, in that last question. Will this AI stuff and its subterfuge of “training” on human-generated “content” end up breaking the actual process of generation and innovation? Will it do to information—here’s my inevitable urbanism angle—what the advent of suburbia did to our traditional process of incrementally building up cities? An innovation too good to refuse, but which ultimately costs far more than we realize? This all—the technology bit—seems to relate to this recent article in The Atlantic, on “cultural arbitrage”:
The article is largely about taste-making and things like innovation in music, but it touches on this idea of the process itself—slow, inefficient, fickle—being key to the things that are eventually generated. Maybe in the long run it simply isn’t possible to take the work out of things. This, in turn, makes me think of something else. I remember—pre-smartphone, pre-unlimited-data-plan—when you’d be chatting with a group of people and you could kind of propose a question or wonder something out loud, and everyone would submit a guess. It could be something as small as “What’s the capital of Alabama?” “Uh, Memphis?” “No, that’s Mississippi!” “No, that’s Tennessee!” “What is the capital of Alabama?” You could get some gentle comedy and teasing out of these things. And you might learn something. Sometimes working through a question you can’t answer with someone, or the answer to which you know but don’t recall, is productive. It kind of forces you to stretch your brain, and it can help you connect with people. Now that you can just look these things up, a question is often not a conversation-starter but a conversation-ender: “I don’t know, look it up.” The removal of these friction points ends up being isolating; it cuts out something in and of itself unnecessary, but necessary to the bigger things of forming relationships, sharing information, making something together. What’s the proper analogy for this? Something potentially unpleasant, frictional, difficult to choose to do when it is optional—but integral to things we deeply need? It’s something like trying to get to a cooked dish without the heat and work of cooking. It’s not realizing that the result is necessarily embodied in the process. Finally—one more link—I want to go back to something I wrote awhile ago, but which I think about a lot (I only wrote up what a presenter said, at an event):
Maybe the right analogy is trying to get to a fire without starting one. I think of all of this as adjacent to urbanism, because cities and towns are a physical embodiment of the idea that people are inherently social, and that we need each other. Even more philosophically, urbanism is a reminder that we are physical creatures; that our needs and feelings and actions are mediated through the real world, and that digital technology is doing something metaphysically deceitful in concealing the physicality of the world. The perseverance and resurgence of cities is evidence to me that we still know what we need, and that—our fallenness, again—the very difficulty sometimes of affirmatively choosing it is evidence that we need it. Related Reading: You Never Know How It Falls Apart Thank you for reading! Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help support this newsletter. You’ll get a weekly subscribers-only piece, plus full access to the archive: over 1,000 pieces and growing. And you’ll help ensure more like this! You're currently a free subscriber to The Deleted Scenes. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. |
Older messages
New and Old #163
Monday, June 3, 2024
Friday roundup and commentary ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Saturation
Monday, June 3, 2024
Why does it feel harder to *do* anything these days? Or does it? ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Kitchen Break
Monday, June 3, 2024
The domestic joy of cooking, and how to best utilize a chicken thigh ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
The Men's Room Analogy
Monday, June 3, 2024
A funny way to think about housing choices ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Taking Their Sweet Time
Monday, June 3, 2024
What Do You Think You're Looking At? #164 ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
You Might Also Like
Podcast app setup
Tuesday, July 2, 2024
Open this on your phone and click the button below: Add to podcast app
Dakota Johnson Co-Signed The Must-Have Pants Of The Season
Tuesday, July 2, 2024
Easy and breezy. The Zoe Report Daily The Zoe Report 7.1.2024 "I'm one to gravitate toward playful, quirky pieces, and this summer, the slogan tee has captured my undivided attention. From
TONIGHT: Poetry & the Creative Mind Encore
Monday, July 1, 2024
one more chance to watch View this email in your browser The encore broadcast of Poetry & the Creative Mind is tonight! Monday, July 1, 2024 8:00/5:00 pm EDT/PDT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
MIDDI Rewind: How Grand
Monday, July 1, 2024
Three luxurious ways to spoil yourself whenever you wish. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
100+ STEAM Activities For Kids
Monday, July 1, 2024
special offer from our friends at Popular Mechanics special offer from our friends at Popular Mechanics Encourage Them To Be a Maker and a Doer! View in Browser 100+ Steam Activities Kids Won't
Your Zodiac Sign Will Have A Playful & Flirty July
Monday, July 1, 2024
Plus, Bella Hadid's sheer white dress, how to confront roommates about money problems, & more. Jul. 1, 2024 Bustle Daily A collage with money, cardboard boxes, toilet paper, and a megaphone,
How the NDA Became the Defining Legal Document of Our Time
Monday, July 1, 2024
What's new today on the Cut — covering style, self, culture, and power, plus interviews, profiles, columns, and commentary from our editors. Brand Logo MONDAY, JULY 1 love and war Hush-Hush Affair
Which crab dip recipe is worth the splurge?
Monday, July 1, 2024
Din Tai Fung announces opening date for NYC location
Dems Must Confront the MAGA Supreme Court
Monday, July 1, 2024
The ruling in the immunity case raises the stakes in the election. Democrats must respond in kind. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Urbanism And Kids (Not The Way You Think)
Monday, July 1, 2024
The pro-natalist anti-urbanists may have it backwards ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏