What these technologies do best is remind us of what we’re not doing: who’s hanging out without us, who’s working more than us, what news we’re not reading. It refuses to allow our consciousness off the hook, in order to do the essential, protective, regenerative work of sublimating and repressing. Instead, it provides the opposite: a nonstop barrage of notifications and reminders and interactions. It brings every detail of our lives and others’ to the forefront in a way that makes it impossible to ignore. Of course we do more.
