Look, Don't Touch

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While new technological advances continue to reinforce complete visual immersion, our sense of touch wanes from the digi-cultural experience, especially with the invention of flatter keyboards, smaller buttons and industrially slick “touch” screens. “Digital” no longer signifies the hand so much as computer calculations far removed from the counting of our fingers. I particularly notice this attenuation of digitality while driving my car and placing calls. Trying to maintain my eyes on the road, I struggle to dial* numbers on my new iPhone because I can no longer rely on my sense of touch: My iPhone’s smooth glass touch screen, made of simulated “push-button” controls, requires more focus, visually and mentally, and offers less actual “feel” than my old cell phone. Its operation consequently absorbs more of my faculties than I am accustomed and disengages my awareness from other simultaneous sensory experiences, like veering over the rumble strips on the side of the highway.

* Here to “dial” is an anachronism. It is derived from analog phones with actual dials mounted on them. To place a call on these phones, one had to insert a finger into a numbered hole on the dial and rotate it to a mechanical stop; a more tactile experience than even the modern “push button” phone.