What Technology Takes From Us – And How To Take It Back
By Rebecca Solnit | The Guardian | January 29, 2026
In the rush towards convenience and efficiency, modern technology, particularly artificial intelligence, is reshaping not only how we live but what it means to be human. Rebecca Solnit’s reflective essay, featured in The Guardian, explores the subtle but profound losses technology exacts from our lives—losses not easily measured in data or productivity but essential to our sense of connection, creativity, and presence in the world.
The Loss of Immersive Experience
Solnit begins with a vivid personal memory of summer days spent picking blackberries in a shaded creek. Beyond simply harvesting fruit, these moments were immersive, engaging all her senses: the textures and colors of berries, the hum of bees, the patterns of flowing water, and the peaceful solitude. She recalls how the act of gathering berries was more than a means to an end — it was a process filled with calm and immersion in the natural world, something she sought to share with others through jars of homemade jam.
This anecdote underscores a deeper point: that many valuable human experiences resist quantification. The pleasure and satisfaction found in growing tomatoes or engaging with nature extend far beyond the raw output. It encompasses the slow, sensory, and embodied processes—the watching of a plant grow, the observation of pollinators, the pride in a task done oneself. These experiences are eroded by a technology paradigm obsessed with maximization of output with minimal effort.
The Tyranny of the Quantifiable
Solnit references environmentalist Chip Ward’s term, “the tyranny of the quantifiable,” describing how capitalism and now technology promote an ideology valuing “having” over “doing.” Technology companies, especially in Silicon Valley, push for convenience, efficiency, and productivity as supreme values, often at the expense of deeper human engagement.
The essay points out how this mindset encourages us to minimize time spent in the world interacting with others and maximizes time spent working or online. While there are undeniable benefits to innovation, the downside includes the withering of public life, casual social contacts, and familiarity with one’s physical surroundings — elements essential for cultivating community, belonging, and a thriving democracy.
Isolation Wrapped in Convenience
Solnit describes coming across everyday experiences transformed by technology—such as ordering food at a touchscreen kiosk instead of verbally communicating with a person. While more efficient in theory, these systems reduce human-to-human interaction, render workers’ roles more mechanistic, and leave some people feeling lost or frustrated. She worries this growing norm feeds a learned aversion to social contact, diminishes our social skills, and erodes the resilience needed to engage in the unpredictable, sometimes uncomfortable, dynamics of real-world relationships.
She recounts a bookstore encounter where making simple eye contact and having a brief conversation felt like a rare and treasured event. This example illustrates how technology discourages not only interaction but even the rehearsal of basic social behaviors.
The Atrophy of Thought and Solitude
Beyond social disconnection, Silicon Valley marketing promotes AI as a solution to thinking alone or creative problem-solving. Ads suggest that independent thought, communication, and creation are too difficult, encouraging reliance on AI for these endeavors.
Solnit references noted sociologist Sherry Turkle, who has studied the psychological effects of computer technology since the 1970s. Turkle warns that the introduction of screens into our lives disrupts our capacity for solitude—a crucial foundation for empathy and self-awareness. The ability to be alone with one’s thoughts is not often considered an activity, yet it is fundamental to personal growth and creativity. When technology erodes this capacity, the consequences may be far-reaching.
A Call for Collective Effort
This essay is not a critique of AI technology itself but rather a call to recognize what gets lost when we uncritically embrace its offerings. Solnit insists that what is at stake are relationships, the richness of direct experience, and the very aspects of human life that technology cannot measure or replace.
To reclaim these fundamental human qualities requires collective effort: deliberately valuing presence over convenience, doing for the sake of experience itself, nurturing public life and local communities, and safeguarding our capacities for solitude and authentic contact. As we navigate this new technological landscape, we must remember that life is not just about efficiency or productivity but also about connection, engagement, and being fully alive in the moment.
In Summary:
Rebecca Solnit’s thoughtful essay in The Guardian highlights how Silicon Valley’s technological ethos prioritizes convenience and quantifiable outcomes while neglecting the deeper human experiences of connection, doing, and solitude. While technology offers undeniable benefits, it comes at the cost of diminished social interaction, loss of place-based belonging, and atrophy of essential human capacities. The path forward demands awareness, resistance to alienation, and communal effort to recover what technology takes away.
