What Technology Takes From Us – And How to Take It Back
By Rebecca Solnit | The Guardian | January 29, 2026
In an era dominated by artificial intelligence and digital convenience, a growing concern is emerging about what technology extracts from our lives—not just time, but our connections, experiences, and very selves. Rebecca Solnit explores this profound loss, rooted not only in Silicon Valley’s technocratic vision but also in the broader societal shift toward valuing efficiency over engagement, and productivity over presence.
Life Beyond Convenience: The Lost Art of Doing
Solnit begins with a vivid recollection of simpler, tactile joys: summer days spent wading through a creek to gather wild blackberries, hands stained purple by fruit juice and marked by thorns. It was not just the harvest that mattered, but the act of gathering—the sounds of birds and water, the feel of cool creek water on her skin. These moments offered peace, embodiment, and a deep sensory connection with the natural world that technology-driven life seems to neglect.
Similarly, she recalls the experience of growing tomatoes, more than a matter of cost or yield but an immersion in growth, patience, and nurturing—activities where doing is inseparable from being. The author references environmentalist Chip Ward’s concept of “the tyranny of the quantifiable,” critiquing the obsession with measurable outcomes at the expense of experience and humility before natural rhythms.
Solnit stresses that these experiences, unique to each person, form the foundation of a rich human life. Yet the capitalist and technological narratives push us to the opposite extreme: to maximize possession while minimizing effort and engagement.
Silicon Valley’s Ideology: Convenience as Isolation
The article scrutinizes the Silicon Valley ethos, where technology’s promise of convenience and efficiency often translates into a withdrawal from unmediated life. Public spaces and daily routines that once fostered casual human interaction are disappearing or becoming less accessible in person, replaced by screens and automation.
Solnit laments the loss of simple errands like buying milk or newspapers, once opportunities for encounter, observation, and belonging within a community. These small exchanges are foundational to social fabric and democracy, promoting ease with diversity, situational awareness, and a sense of local connection. The “tyranny of the quantifiable” dismisses these subtle but vital connections, weakening public life and increasing social isolation.
Alienation in the Service Economy
An anecdote from a San Francisco restaurant illustrates this trend: traditional human interaction is replaced by touchscreen ordering systems. Although intended to streamline service, these kiosks often extend the ordering time and eliminate the brief moments of human contact that enrich daily life—for both customers and workers.
This mechanization can diminish the social fabric of neighborhoods, especially in tech-centric cities like San Francisco, and cultivate an aversion to human contact. Even when face-to-face options remain, customers and staff may avoid them, influenced by years of digitally reinforced detachment.
The Erosion of Our Capacity for Connection and Thought
A visit to a local bookstore reveals a troubling phenomenon: younger people in tech-heavy areas often avoid eye contact and genuine conversation. The author highlights this as symptomatic of a deeper withdrawal—not merely physical but emotional and intellectual.
Technology companies advocate for “never thinking alone,” advertising AI tools that promise to replace or shortcut personal reflection and creativity. But Solnit challenges this premise. She draws on psychologist Sherry Turkle’s research showing that screen time can erode our ability to be alone with our thoughts—a capacity essential for empathy, creativity, and self-awareness.
Reclaiming Our Presence and Agency
While Solnit’s essay is not a direct critique of AI on technical grounds, it raises questions about what is implicitly lost when society embraces AI and automation without scrutiny. The outsourcing of decisions to algorithms and the replacement of human-to-human contact with bots threatens to hollow out our social and emotional resilience.
The way forward, she argues, requires a collective effort to value doing alongside having, to reclaim moments of authentic connection, and to resist the seductive but impoverishing ideology of maximum efficiency. It means rediscovering the joy of engagement with the world, whether through gardening, conversation, or simply spending quiet time in nature—the irreplaceable domains where our humanity flourishes.
Rebecca Solnit’s essay invites us to reconsider the cost of our technological conveniences and to actively take back hold of the parts of life that machines—no matter how clever—can never truly replicate: presence, connection, and the slow art of being fully human.
