Do We Control Tech—Or Does Tech Control Us?

Technology is often regarded as a tool shaped either by the intentions of its users or its designers — but philosopher Martin Heidegger disagreed

Photo by Tayler Smith, Prop Styling by Caroline Dorn

“Technology is intrinsically neither good nor bad. The key is using it to support your goals and values.”

So reads the book jacket of Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism. It’s an old cliché: Technology is what we make of it, a neutral tool that can be shaped by the intentions of the user. And yet, as Newport’s book makes clear, for users of digital technology — be it smartphones, social media, or email — it doesn’t feel like that’s the case much of the time. What many of us experience is, in fact, a lack of control over how we use our devices.

There is a growing body of literature recognizing this new condition. We feel like we’re in a state of perpetual distraction, catching ourselves on social media without knowing why and unintentionally jumping from email to Slack to the news—all at the expense of our main tasks. The diagnosis presented is that technology is controlled not by the users, but by its designers. Critics warn us about the ways in which the companies that create digital technology are set on getting us addicted to their products, hijacking our attention — and, while…