The Extinction of Experience

Being Human in a Disembodied World

De: Christine Rosen

Narrado por: Suzie Althens

A reflective, original invitation to recover and cultivate the human experiences that have atrophied in our virtual world.

We embraced the mediated life—from Facetune and Venmo to meme culture and the Metaverse—because these technologies offer novelty and convenience. But they also transform our sense of self and warp the boundaries between virtual and real. What are the costs? Who are we in a disembodied world?

In The Extinction of Experience, Christine Rosen investigates the cultural and emotional shifts that accompany our embrace of technology. In warm, philosophical prose, Rosen reveals key human experiences at risk of going extinct, including face-to-face communication, sense of place, authentic emotion, and even boredom. Considering cultural trends, like TikTok challenges and mukbang, and politically unsettling phenomena, like sociometric trackers and online conspiracy culture, Rosen exposes an unprecedented shift in the human condition, one that habituates us to alienation and control. To recover our humanity and come back to the real world, we must reclaim serendipity, community, patience, and risk.

©2024 Christine Rosen (P)2024 Tantor

Timely, thought-provoking, and invitational

Rosen invites us to consider important questions about how we are, or are not, experiencing our lives. I, for one, plan to spend more time trying to be present. At the same time, she provides thought-provoking guidelines about how we might try to wrestle with, perhaps achieve, a balance between the real and the unreal. Worth the read/listen.

Terrible robotic narration

The reader sounded robotic and might well have been. Great content but I stopped listening after the first hour because the narration was so annoying.

Christine is great

I listen to Christine most days on the Commentary pod.. she is a sweetheart & a formidable public intellectual. This is an interesting & well-presented argument about our ever-diminishing humanity.. I don't agree with her on everything (for instance CURSIVE!), but she certainly has a point overall.
I didn't love the narrator. She clearly puts such an extreme effort (and succeeds) at speaking clearly & pleasantly, that she ignores the actual content of what she's reading.. words are often emphasized in a manner NOT of how someone would actually speak & convey the message, but rather in a robotic manner of a person simply wanting to get this next clump of words out clearly. But still, 5 stars cuz the book is great & so is CR.

the theme

the verbatim recitation of the book was plodding with repetitive phrases they bogged down the message of the book

disappointed

I heard the author being interviewed and she mentioned a couple of the items the book focused on. interstate subject, but this book is a little more than an endless series of rather obvious anecdotes. this is more like a long journal article than a book.

Embody Your Life

This is a great book. I really related to the message and mostly enjoyed the listen. I like the author.

It's a bit ironic, though, that the narrator sounds so robotic and machine generated. At first I thought it wasn't a real person, but apparently she is and she is attempting to sound like the voice of AI. I hate to criticize but it's distracting.

A painfully necessary book for the modern world.

Incredibly bright and concise argument of a read. Defending humanity and the ways of old. This critique of the modern world and technology has been long overdue. Thank you to the author.

Thought Provoking Content

I appreciate the case made against the over-technoligizing of human experience (and the irony of downloading and listening to the book rather than buying a hard copy and reading it). My only complaint is that I would have rather heard Christine Rosen read it, but the narrator did a good job in her own right.

Thought provoking

I liked the way this book peaked my interest and challenged me to consider how technology is affecting my life the lives around me. I didn’t like the narrator’s cadence and tone;, she sounded like a robot, which given the content of the book was ironic. The writing seemed tangential at times with so many antidotes and examples, I lost track of what the overarching idea was. This may be because I wasn’t seeing the chapters and break down of paragraphs due to it being an audiobook. Overall, I really liked this book and will recommend to others!

AI Kills the Human Spirit

Too bad AI groupies will for the most part be clueless to Rosen’s message. I’ve witnessed it with members of my extended family. They have no interest in philosophy or history. They’re indifferent to past ages and the cultural contributions made to the present. As William Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”