Review of C. Rosen (2024). The Extinction of Experience. Being Human in a Disembodied World, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 272 p.

Have you ever read a book that gave rise to almost as many notes as in the book itself? This is one of them. To be interested in a new approach and to end up very disappointed by the way the book is structured, by its anecdotal character without evidence telling a different story than the book’s title suggests, by the many contradictions, the sloppy research, the repetitive lamentations about disappearing phenomena, the extreme interpretations and one-sidedness of the narrative, and the fact that there are no suggestions for solutions.

In The Extinction of Experience, Christine Rosen eloquently attempts to explain how technology is reshaping the human ‘experience’. She wants readers to think about what it means to be human in a world where digital media seem to overwhelm and take full possession of human attention. Rosen is concerned about what it means to be human when ‘experience’ is hijacked by virtual analogues and becomes disembodied and, more worryingly, monetized. Experiences are, according to Rosen, practices that formed us as individuals, groups, and societies.

“Experiences, broadly considered, are the ways we become acquainted with the world. Direct experience is our first teacher. As we learn to navigate the world around us, we attach meaning to what we encounter. These experiences and meanings differ across times and cultures but share common threads. Different people speak different languages and have different social customs, but the fact that we all have languages and customs is a marker of our shared humanity. Certain types of experience — some rooted deeply in our evolutionary history, such as face-to-face interaction and various forms of pleasure-seeking; others more recent and reflective of cultural norms, such as patience and our sense of public space and place — are fading from our lives. Many of these experiences are what, historically, have helped us form and nurture a shared reality as human beings.” (introduction)

Rosen focuses on what digital platforms have given us, but more importantly, what they have suppressed. Four themes are continuously repeated: the commodification of experience, the collapse of public communal places, the dangers of frictionless interaction, and the need to reclaim ‘embodied’ experiences.

In the seven chapters, she focuses on:

1. The replacement of ‘you had to be physically there’ (to experience something) with ‘véjà du’, seeing ourselves virtually doing or visiting something we did not physically do, offering virtual imitations of human experiences (Chapter 1, You Had to be There.)
2. The (physiological and psychological) importance of face-to-face meetings, conversations, and other interactions, as opposed to the dismal effects of disembodied, two-dimensional videoconferencing (Chapter 2, Facing One Another.)
3. The detrimental effects of social media on the behaviour of individuals and groups, especially children and parents (Chapter 3, Hand to Mouse, but all other chapters have examples of changed behaviour).
4. The effects of replacing boredom with managed artificial distraction and stimulation (Chapter 4, How we wait.)
6. The flattening of emotional depth and complexity by replacing ambiguity and self-deception with a data-driven ‘sixth sense’ (Chapter 5, The Sixth Sense.)
7. How ‘adventure’ is a tourist marketing brand for planned and safe encounters, attenuating chance in unfamiliar environments, and offering ‘real experiences’ (according to touristic marketers) (Chapter 6, Mediated Pleasures.)
8. How instant pornography is changing sexual expectations and the psychological and emotional aspects of people having sex (Chapter 6, Mediated Pleasures.)
9. How digital spaces are replacing places but cannot have the physical definition and cultural meaning of those places (Chapter 7, Place, Space, and Serendipity).

Rosen ends her conclusion in an extremely generalized way, with a paragraph that echoes the point she made in her introduction:

“If we are to reclaim human virtues and save our most deeply rooted human experiences from extinction, we must be willing to place limits on the more extreme transformative projects proposed by our techno-enthusiasts, not as a means of stifling innovation but as a commitment to our shared humanity. Only then can we live freely as the embodied, quirky, contradictory, resilient, creative human beings we are.” (conclusion)

Rosen addresses the paradox of our contemporary world, which is characterized by unprecedented levels of connectivity, but also by feelings of disconnection, alienation and loss. She articulates a recurring lament for the physical, embodied aspects of life, which she claims are being progressively eroded by digital technologies. She argues that reliance on digital technologies leads to a preference for the ‘simulated to the real,’ resulting in the atrophy of fundamental physical aspects of being human, affecting our sense of self, communication and emotional life. We have sacrificed human qualities for convenience, Rosen believes. As a result,

“Our understanding of experience has become disordered, in ways large and small. More and more people mistrust their own experiences. More and more people create their own realities rather than live in the world around them. We can no longer assume that reality is a matter of consensus.” (introduction)

If the sole aim of her book were to alert readers to the dangers of technological addiction for individuals, groups, and society, I would largely agree. Others have come out with the same message before, such as Jonathan Haidt and Nicholas Carr. But that is not her aim. She claims that the human experience is changing and that we are losing crucial human qualities through the intensive use of technology. She has collected an enormous number of anecdotes to support that claim. But are they enough to prove her assumption?

In my opinion, they are not.

‘Experience’ is an evasive (psychological and philosophical) concept and varies from person to person. According to the philosopher Emmanuel Falque, it means a ‘crossing’ or ‘passage’ from one state to another, from boredom to interest to excitement. [i] Rosen does not explain experiences in this way. The only definition that could be located directly in Rosen’s work is that experiences are the ways in which we become acquainted with the world (quoted earlier), as stated in the fourth sentence of the introduction. This is a highly generalized definition that could also be applied to many other phenomena, like ‘learning’ or ‘socialization’. It even allows for ‘real’ experiences in virtual platforms. However, Rosen’s interpretation of experience in her book differs from this generalization. She develops an alternative ‘definition’ which is never explicitly articulated as such. It narrows the scope of her broad and general definition, thereby almost completely excluding mediated or simulated forms, such as those found on virtual platforms. Instead, it focuses on interpreting experiences as a direct, embodied, authentic, and rich engagement with the physical world and others. Only in this sense, according to Rosen, can experiences be considered ‘true’. But is it the experience that is direct, embodied, authentic, and rich, or is it the engagement (leading to the ‘crossing’ or ‘passage’) generating the experience? Because Rosen doesn’t study both experience and engagement, it’s unclear what her book is about.

Based on her unspoken alternative definition of experience, Rosen adheres to a phenomenological interpretation. Although there are many different strands within phenomenology, they all (more or less) adhere to an engagement with the physical world. However, Rosen doesn’t (even) discuss phenomenology, only mentioning works by Maurice Merleau-Ponty and George Lakoff, originally published in 1945 and 1980, long before the age of digital platforms, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. She ignores more recent phenomenological literature that attempts to define experience in relation to virtual platforms and realities, to define these platforms as part of a transformation or passage to another reality. Catharine Palmer, for example, proposes the concept of ‘virtual dwelling’, the ‘experience of being embedded in the world’. [ii] Jean du Toit introduces a special issue of the Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology devoted entirely to the effects of virtual worlds on experience and embodiment, discussing possible new interpretations of virtual experiences. [iii] Rosen only mentions artificial intelligence in anecdotes about experiences we will lose. There is no discussion of the experiences people are having or might have with expressions of technologies, such as AI tutors, telemedicine, and ‘how to’-videos. There is no discussion of how virtual platforms change experiences, what the psychological and philosophical differences are between an experience in virtual reality and one in physical reality, or even what the differences are between ‘true’ and ‘untrue’ experiences. She doesn’t even discuss how new technologies are contributing to the ‘extinction of experience’, apart from giving anecdotes about how they affect behaviour (which is related but very different from experience!). She ignores almost all benefits that technology has given us.

Without a solid theoretical foundation, Rosen ends with a sweeping condemnation of virtual technologies, which is nothing new. In doing so, she exaggerates her argument to the point where her narrative becomes a lament for what is about to be lost. She forgets that experience is based on practical engagement with the technologies of the time. She forgets that we live in a hybrid world where we all have physical and virtual presences. We engage in both worlds and our experiences are different in each. We still have ‘embodied experiences’ in the physical world (we still fall in love, go to the gym and the cinema, take nature walks, go hiking or sailing, and so on), but also (though differently) in the virtual world, because the rush we feel when, for example, we beat an extremely difficult level in an online game is just like the rush we feel in the physical world when playing football. And of course, they’re different because we can’t use all our senses in a virtual world, but the experience that follows the engagement doesn’t have to be any less.

Our world is not disembodied, as Rosen suggests in the book’s title, because it is a hybrid world of embodied and disembodied experiences. Practices and experiences change, as they always do when there are technological changes or social transformations. The same thing happened when parchment was replaced by paper and Gutenberg invented the printing press. I still remember (I am originally a medievalist and an archivist) a late medieval monk cursing in the margin of a Cistercian abbey’s cartulary that the flood of cheap paper had overwhelmed his neatly ordered archive. I am sure he was bemoaning the fact that everyone was using it and everything had to be recorded now that there was a cheap alternative to parchment. A new technology always influences people’s behaviour, and I am sure that some of what people experience will change. That doesn’t have to be bad, and it’s not a reason to declare all those changes negative or bad (although many people who have experienced them probably have.)

Although Rosen emphasizes experience (mentioned 405 times in the core text of the book), I do not think the book is essentially about it. Nor is it about the ‘extinction’ of experience (mentioned only 11 times). The central idea of the book, as I see it, is about cultural decay and the alienation from (some of) the traditional aspects of being human that is caused by the digitalization of society and of life. This explains Rosen’s complaints about the latest communication technologies and her laments about, for example, the disappearance of cursive writing. She often fails to back up these complaints with evidence. This is not so strange, given the literature she uses. The academic literature is in the minority. Moreover, only 104 of the 466 unique literature sources cited are from the period 2015-2024. This means that more than 75% of the literature used is more than ten years old and, for the most part, does not represent current developments in scientific thinking on the topics mentioned in the book. I have already mentioned her lack of recent literature on phenomenology (for explaining experience), but she also does not use literature on the ‘Extinction of Experience framework’ as developed from Robert Pyle’s writings. [iv] Although she borrows her title from Pyle’s book (which she only uses for the title), she does nothing with the framework that could have really helped her theoretically. Based on her anecdotes and her lamentations, a title like ‘Decay of Culture’ would have been more appropriate.

Rosen takes her criticism to the extreme without offering any solutions. Advising people to look to the Amish is not a real solution.

“We need to be more like the Amish in our approach to technology, cultivating a robust scepticism about each new device and app, even if most of us will not be as strict as the Amish in rejecting them. The Amish ask the right questions before embracing something new: How will this impact our community? Is it good for families? Does it support or undermine our values? When they decide against adopting something new, the community supports the decision as a group.” (conclusion)

I agree that such questions are good to ask, but they can only be answered within a unified moral framework, belief or custom, and with accepted leadership, which may be possible for the Amish, but not for everyone else.

Rosen’s critique assumes that technology is to blame. The gathered anecdotes are all about the negative influence of technological solutions. But is it to blame? Is it not more likely that technology enables people to act out of the selfishness and individualism instilled in them by decades of neoliberal propaganda? Is it not precisely these policies that are to blame? Is the addiction to technology not also a result of seeking refuge from an uninviting physical world, with cutbacks on public places and playgrounds, educational opportunities, and continuous layoffs? Creating a moral panic to denounce the social changes brought about by one’s own economic policies and to blame someone or something else is characteristic of modern conservatism. Rosen should know. She is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, known for its global warming denial and free-market extremism.

I am well aware of the problematic effects of digital platforms on behaviour. However, there are better books on the subject than what Christine Rosen offers here. If you like an anecdotal narrative that is eloquently written and don’t take it too seriously, I could recommend it. If you want to read or learn something new, look elsewhere.

---

[i] E. Falque (2017). The Book of Experience. From Anselm of Canterbury to Bernard of Clairvaux, Bloomsbury, p. 6.

[ii] C. Palmer (2023). ‘Virtual Dwelling and the Phenomenology of Experience. Museum Encounters between Self and World’, Humanities, Vol. 12, No. 6, 148. Online source, retrieved Mai 1, 2025, from: https://doi.org/10.3390/h12060148.

[iii]  J. du Toit (2020). ‘Introduction: Phenomenology and virtuality’, Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 1-3. Online source, retrieved Mai 1, 2025, from: https://doi.org/10.1080/20797222.2021.1896236.

[iv] M. Soga, and K.J. Gaston (2016). ‘Extinction of experience: the loss of human–nature interactions’, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 94-101.