In a Digitally Rendered World, Physical Presence Still Matters

All screens are created equal, and are endowed by their creators with certain ridiculous promises.

I try to stay out of the digital sphere as much as my life allows. Of course, I have to be in it to work. There is not a job that I am qualified for and am interested in that doesn’t require me to use a computer. Even teaching, a profession that existed long before computers, is now inseparable from technology. That’s not a bad thing. It is just a thing.

For that reason, though, I try to make most of my play — hobbies, interests, and daily activities — as undigitized as possible. I run and work out without earphones. I leave my phone in the car when hiking or swimming with my kids. On a date with my wife, I slip my phone into her purse so it’s not within arms reach. We don’t have a TV in our house. I read books on paper. I still use my phone, but my main goal is to keep it from being a hobby. I don’t want to turn to my phone or computer just for fun. I want to keep it functional. I don’t always succeed, but that’s my goal.

This is a gut-feeling thing. I can watch myself and watch others and notice that the less screen time I have, the happier I am. Texting friends comes nowhere close to the joy of seeing them in person. When my wife and I put the kids to bed and I chose to talk to her instead of doom-scrolling, I never regret it. I always regret doom-scrolling. Using my phone for play is mindless. The fact that I have to remind myself to drink water, an essential for survival, but not remind myself to check my email or socials is enough of a red flag for me. But, it’s also undeniable that to make money and plan a group hangout and hear family stories, I need to look at a screen. That’s a reality and I am OK with it.

Yet, I can’t help but think that the corporate powers that make screens are still marketing to me. They’re not just marketing to the tech junkie that waited in line for 12 hours for the last iPhone. They’re not just marketing to the normie who mindlessly keeps pace. They’re marketing to the guy whose devices are always 3 generations behind. The guy who doesn’t want to use the screen but admits that he has to. I am in a bind, and they know that, so their marketing is coming for me.

That’s how it feels, anyway. Their latest drop — the Apple Vision Pro — is the best new example. As a dutiful millennial who will always choose to work in the hipper-looking coffee shop rather than the quieter one, I am a sucker for clean, well-conceived design. Design that is so clean that it doesn’t distract as much as it blends in. All of Apple’s products, even the ones whose functionality never gained traction, hinge on this cool simplicity. For as simple as it looked, I remember every sleek line of my first iPhone. The Blackberry, in memory, is just a jumbled mess.

So, why exactly do I feel targeted by the Ski-Goggle Pro marketing? They are lying to my digitally rendered face. It is not about beauty anymore, it is about belief. They have anticipated my concerns (screens are distracting and unsuited to my IRL relationships) and are trying to console me by selling me not just a product, but a belief system. Take this paragraph below from the Vision Pro launch page:

With Vision Pro, you have an infinite canvas that transforms how you use the apps you love. Arrange apps anywhere and scale them to the perfect size, making the workspace of your dreams a reality — all while staying present in the world around you. Browse the web in Safari, create a to-do list in Notes, chat in Messages, and seamlessly move between them with a glance.

It uses some expected words — infinite, transforms, dreams, seamless. Typical new tech jargon. But, don’t miss the promise they make:

…all while staying present in the world around you.

Presence. We’ve been promised this before, but not so concisely. Read up on the specs and you’ll see the Vision Pro isn’t actually glasses at all because there is no lens. What you see inside is a screen that projects a digital version of the world around you, and the front screen presents a digital version of your face. It’s all digital renderings. Maybe this is arguable to some people, but when you are wearing the Apple Vision Pro, you are not seeing the world around you. You are looking at your computer screen.

Which… is fine. Aren’t we all looking at a computer screen right now? If you’re OK viewing the world through a digital re-creation of it, you do you, man. The problem is that Apple has just told us, and I’m afraid many have already believed, that there is no difference. We believe that we can occupy the digital world and the physical world at the exact same time.

This is the lie. Look up distracted driving deaths related to cell phone use. Look up cell phone use in schools. Take your kids to a restaurant with TVs on all the walls and try to have a serious conversation with them. I can barely even concentrate in a restaurant now with all the flashing around me.

Yet, here is Apple selling us a computer that is somehow not supposed to distract us, but keep us present? In the real world? Here’s another line to consider from the Apple website (with my own emphasis):

Vision Pro helps you remain connected to those around you. EyeSight reveals your eyes and lets those nearby know when you’re using apps or fully immersed in an experience. When someone approaches, Vision Pro simultaneously lets you see the person and reveals your eyes to them.

To be in the present, meaning that our mind and our body are in the same moment of space, is our hardest task as humans. Entire religious movements are based on learning to live in the present moment. For what seems to be such a simple proposition, living in the present tense is always posited as the work of gurus and bodhisattvas.

Let’s be realistic. To complete a lot of our work, we have to be thinking outside of time. My mind cannot be exactly where my body is. I have to write an article that speaks in the present tense but is read in the future, with information from the past. Everything that I write should be relevant not just on the day that I hit publish, but in the journalistic sense of “today”, or the “time that we live in”. This is a sort of tricky place to hang out because it’s neither today nor a date on the calendar. Ideally, whatever I write will not just work in my own time, but someone else’s. It will be so unbound by time that someone will connect with it centuries later. That’s where we get classic literature, classic philosophy, and the Shrek franchise.

So, what good is talking about the present moment when so much of our work exists outside of the present? When does the present tense matter? How do we define presence in the looming march toward a VR world?

My answer: My 3-year-old and my 5-year-old. There is no one that I have found presence to be more important to than my kids. Physical presence, emotional presence, spiritual presence. They crave it and they need it. What could possibly matter less to my kid than yesterday? Well, tomorrow. They live and breathe in the present tense and need the interaction of others who are in the present too. Some call this mindfulness, or embodiment, or Beginner’s Mind. The words are less important than the realization that to interact healthily with my children, I need to be present.

I am not arguing that Vision Pro is going to ruin parenting. Most people are not wearing these things around the house on the daily, right? What I am arguing is that presence is still the most important ethos of humanity. To be present with another human being, both physically and emotionally, is the highest calling of being human. Human touch is not replicable. Looking into someone’s eyes when you talk to them is not replicable. It is essential to being human.

So, here’s what I am saying. Apple Vision Pro is great. But, let’s please call it what it is. It’s a distraction. If it’s a distraction that makes your work a little easier, or a little more fun, then great. It is just another screen, though. Just like all the other screens that distract us. Let’s not allow marketing to convince us it is something it is not. Let’s not pretend that we can exist in the timeless, digitized workspace and also be present in the warm, tactile, and complex world of human beings at the same time.

We deserve better. You deserve better.

Addendum

I said the “looming march toward a VR world” in paragraph 17 for dramatic effect. I don’t really believe it is looming. To say so feels like fear-mongering. The last person I want to be is the guy on the corner with a “The End is Near” sign. Technology moves quickly and marketing demands drama and it’s easy to be enamored, whether positive or pessimistic, with the whole thing.

What’s important is that we talk about it correctly. We have to talk about it with our kids correctly. We must give technology a place and strictly define it. Technology is a terrible alternative to human touch, human emotions, and human experience. But it only replaces it if we let it. If we forget what technology and being human are. Technology is a tool that does a lot of wonderful things; Living in the present is not one of them. Presence still matters. Presence with people still matters. Presence with people that inhabit the same physical space still matters.