Ep. 84: Reclaiming Experience: Christine Rosen on Being Human in a Disembodied World

Does the richness of your world expand or shrink in direct proportion to how much of your life is digitally mediated?

My guest argues that by defaulting to digital mediation—where technology filters and facilitates our interactions—we are trading away the richness of real, embodied experience. And in doing so, we risk losing—without even noticing—the very moments that make us happy and resilient.

Are we shrinking our capacity for a full, messy, exhilarating experience of being human?

Christine Rosen is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she explores American history, society, culture, and the impact of technology on human behavior.

She is a columnist for Commentary magazine, a fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, and a senior editor at The New Atlantis. Previously a distinguished visiting scholar at the Library of Congress, Christine has authored several books, including The Extinction of Experience, Esquire’s Best Book of 2024, which serves as the foundation for our discussion.

Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and many other major outlets. She holds a PhD in history from Emory University, a third-degree black belt in Aikido, and teaches martial arts where she lives in Washington, D.C.

On the show, we discuss Christine’s book The Extinction of Experience and a variety of topics, including:

• Our shared interest in Aikido and martial arts
• The thesis of her book
• How technology mediates experiences
• Impacts on basic social interactions
• The concept of “ambiguous loss”
• Serendipity and chance encounters
• How human virtue is created
• Public spaces and the decline of social awareness
• Digital voyeurism
• The physical resonance of IRL events
• Self-isolation and the “loneliness epidemic”

Enjoy! 

For show notes and more, visit www.larryweeks.com