MOTHER'S DAY SPECIALS! SHOW ME MORE

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

The Extinction of Experience

Reclaiming Our Humanity in a Digital World

Christine Rosen

$36.99

Paperback

In stock
Ready to ship

QTY:

English
Bodleian Library
21 January 2025
A philosophical defence of what makes us human - and a powerful argument for reclaiming ourselves in a digital world

Drawing on decades of research, The Extinction of Experience is a philosophical defence of what makes us human - and a powerful, urgent call to reclaim ourselves in a digital world.

Human experiences are disappearing.

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 disconnected and machine-like ourselves.

There is another way. For too long, under the influence of corporate giants and tech enthusiasts, 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 critical, 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.
By:  
Imprint:   Bodleian Library
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 234mm,  Width: 154mm,  Spine: 20mm
Weight:   335g
ISBN:   9781847922090
ISBN 10:   1847922090
Pages:   272
Publication Date:  
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Primary ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Christine Rosen is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a columnist for Commentary magazine, senior editor at the New Atlantis and fellow at the University of Virginia's Institute for Advance Studies in Culture. She is the author of six books, including My Fundamentalist Education, which was chosen as a Washington Post Nonfiction Book of the Year. Her writing has been published in the New York Times, Slate, Los Angeles Times, Politico and more. She lives in Washington, DC.

Reviews for The Extinction of Experience: Reclaiming Our Humanity in a Digital World

Urges us to reclaim the real-world experiences that make life worth living * Guardian, *Books to Look Forward to in 2025* * This book is not a Luddite manifesto ... The question becomes: how do we restore a healthier status quo? ... Rosen gives a razor-sharp analysis of this modern malady, capturing with style how convenience and efficiency have become the enemies of the good life * The Times * Engaging and snappy ... A well-evidenced and well-principled defence of human experience ... Where Rosen succeeds emphatically is in explaining the serious issues without simply blaming anyone - a radical act in these matters * Telegraph * Technology is having pervasive effects on us all, effects which are hard to put into words. Christine Rosen finds the words I've longed for. The Extinction of Experience is an extremely important book, and its message all the more urgent as AI threatens to make everything effortless, frictionless, and disembodied . -- Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation A fascinating and timely book about the essential real-world experiences we're watching vanish before our screen-addled eyes. Resisting the lure of nostalgia, but rejecting the glib assumption that more technology is always better, Christine Rosen makes a passionate case for the face-to-face, embodied, analogue, unpredictable, unmediated life, and its centrality to a vibrant and truly meaningful human existence -- Oliver Burkeman, author of Meditations for Mortals Essential reading in a dislocated world -- Katherine May, author of Wintering The Extinction of Experience is a beautifully expressed ode to the vanishing components of life that remain unplanned, unresearched, and unrecorded. Rosen is an excellent guide, explaining why there's no substitute for seeing, feeling, and touching the world directly -- Adam Alter, author of Irresistible Rosen has written a passionate anatomy of what we lose when we relinquish real life to machine-mediated activity. More than a eulogy, it is an urgent reminder to value and defend real life, with all its riskiness and rough edges, against the safe, smooth, screen-filtered reverie that promises so much more than it can encompass -- Timandra Harkness, author of Technology is Not the Problem [Rosen] is one of America's best writers and thinkers * Washington Examiner * Important ... an urgent interrogation of our increasing reliance on digitally mediated experience * Lit Hub *


See Inside

See Also