Has Silicon Valley been building the wrong things?
Despite its self help-y title, writer/designer/academic Ian Bogost’s forthcoming book “The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life” asks some pointed questions about how technology has transformed our experience of the physical world. Using Bogost’s popular article in the Atlantic about the decline of stick shift cars as a springboard, “The Small Stuff” argues that many aspects of our daily existence — from cars to doors to bathrooms — have become dematerialized.
“Basically, it’s the idea that we’ve become disconnected from the sensory world, and the reason that happened is what you might call convenience technologies,” Bogost told me, though he was quick to add that technology isn’t the only thing driving this change. “All sorts of factors — not just tech, and certainly not just Silicon Valley-style technology — have distanced people from the world that they inhabit, they have stripped away the texture of everyday life.”
In fact, while Bogost nodded to other books criticizing the tech industry, like Jenny Odell’s “How to do Nothing” and Cory Doctorow’s “Enshittification,” he said he’s become “a little bored with the constant critique” and is currently less focused on calling for broad societal change and more on finding “gratification” in everyday sensory experiences.
“It’s a lot to put on ordinary people to say, ‘Well, we just need to solve wealth inequality or capitalism, and then we’ll be able to get back to experiencing our lives fully,’” he said. “Ordinary people don’t need to wait for that.”
During our interview (which I’ve edited for length and clarity), we also discussed the tradeoff between convenience and experience, how Silicon Valley can do better, and the “hipster reclamation of nostalgia.”
You wrote this great piece about the stick shift. How did that lead you to these bigger ideas about “the small stuff”? How did …