Overview

Are you bored of the endless scroll of your social media feed? Do you swipe left before considering the human being whose face you just summarily rejected? Do you skim articles on your screen in search of intellectual stimulation that never arrives? If so, this book is the philosophical lifeline you have been waiting for. Offering a timely meditation on the profound effects of constant immersion in technology, also known as the Interface, Wish I Were Here draws on philosophical analysis of boredom and happiness to examine the pressing issues of screen addiction and the lure of online outrage. Without moralizing, Mark Kingwell takes seriously the possibility that current conditions of life and connection are creating hollowed-out human selves, divorced from their own external world. While scrolling, swiping, and clicking suggest purposeful action, such as choosing and connecting with others, Kingwell argues that repeated flicks of the finger provide merely the shadow of meaning, by reducing us to scattered data fragments, Twitter feeds, Instagram posts, shopping preferences, and text trends captured by algorithms. Written in accessible language that references both classical philosophers and contemporary critics, Wish I Were Here turns to philosophy for a cure to the widespread unease that something is amiss in modern waking life.

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Mark Kingwell is professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto and a contributing editor of Harper's Magazine, and has written for publications ranging from Adbusters and the New York Times to the Journal of Philosophy and Auto Racing Digest. Among his books of political and cultural theory are the national bestsellers Better Living, The World We Want, and Concrete Reveries. Ever since Adam Lofbomm pressed Record on his Fisher-Price recorder back in 1984, he's been bringing worlds to life in words. Over the years, his passion for language inspired him to read broadly, write extensively, speak publicly, perform on-stage and on-camera, but when he stepped into the vocal booth for his first narration job in Seoul, Korea, back in 2006, all those many pieces just clicked into place. He realized then and there that voice acting was what he was made to do. Over the last eleven years working as a professional voice-over actor, Adam has had the great fortune to collaborate with some of the best publishers and organizations in the world. Whether or not Malcolm Gladwell was right when he said that ten-thousand hours will make you world-class at something, Adam did stop counting after he surpassed that milestone in 2016.

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