Back in January I was listening to one of my all time longest running favorite podcasts that has never left my feed, Six Pixels of Separation, where Mitch Joel interviewd Christine Rosen about her latest book, The Extinction of Experience, The podcast blew my mind with new ways of thinking so I bought the book while listening and the during the last few weeks I started my journey into the book. Christine Rosen paints a stark picture of how modern technologies have reshaped human experiences. What once required full engagement with the physical world—travel, conversation, discovery—has increasingly been filtered through digital mediation. In the process, we’ve not only lost patience for the messiness of real life but also risk losing our ability to recognize what is real at all.
I have read the intro and chapter 1 several times. I have even begun a vocab list of new words about how to think about living that I want to do additional research on when I finish the book. Before I do any of that I wanted to take time to live the messages of the book. I analyzed by notes in the margins, my highlights, my circles of words to think deeper about some of the concepts that really stood out to me in the first few chapters. I will do the same again with the ongoing chapters, but I simply had to much to share to put all into one blog reflection.
As I reflect on the passages I highlighted, a crucial question emerges: Are we still experiencing life, or are we merely consuming its digital facsimile?
From Undatabased to Databased Living
Rosen introduces a very compelling distinction between undatabased experiences—those lived directly and unrecorded—and databased experiences, which are mediated through algorithms, platforms, and digital records. I find myself really considering my experiences and even more so of my children’s experiences.
“These are all undatabased experiences and they all happened to me… If I had used my credit card or consulted Yelp before choosing the restaurant, or summoned Google to settle the bet, I would have had a different experience, a databased experience.”
This raises an unsettling point: Have we become so accustomed to algorithmic validation that an experience feels incomplete unless it’s digitally documented?
“In a world of digital experiences, do we any longer recognize any of them as ersatz?”
If our reality is increasingly curated by apps, algorithms, and AI-driven suggestions, can we still trust our instincts?
And a weird moment with the quote above as I did not know what ersatz meant as I have never come across this word and needed to look it up on my phone as I tried to detach from the darn device! I was stuck in a moment of reading her words and noticing my own patterns of behavior.
The Decline of the Sensory and Physical World
Rosen argues that as we deepen our attachment to digital experiences, we diminish the richness of the physical world.
“We need to defend the sensory world and remind ourselves of the crucial importance of the physical body, the integrity of physical space, and the need for people to cultivate inner lives.”
This is an urgent call to resist the erosion of real-world engagement. Technology enables instant gratification, but it also removes the natural pacing of life—waiting, exploring, adapting—that builds resilience and deepens experience.
“We are awash in social media but our social skills—common courtesy, patience, eye contact—are deteriorating. We lack a sense of place; we are impatient with the limitations of physical reality, whether it is the physical limitations of our bodies or the need to wait.”
Is this why so many of us struggle with presence? When was the last time you waited in line without reflexively checking your phone?
How many of us don’t know how to simply be bored and feel we must be constantly doing, moving, scrolling, updating, …..insert verb of action here?
From ‘You Had to Be There’ to ‘Véjà Du’
One of Rosen’s sharpest insights that really made me pause and think a lot about the experiences of my own children is how the phrase “You had to be there” has fallen out of common use, replaced by digital approximations of presence.
“Thanks to the now ubiquitous smartphone, we feel as if we can be anywhere… We now spend as much time consuming the experiences of others as we do having experiences of our own.”
This shift is deeply unsettling to me and was one of my biggest aha moments to process after. Instead of living moments, we are increasingly content to watch others live them, experiencing life secondhand through reaction videos, travel vlogs, and algorithm-driven entertainment.
“Watching a reaction video is a way of vicariously recapturing primary experience.”
Rosen calls this experience plagiarism, where people believe they have lived something simply because they have consumed its representation.
“Instead of ‘You had to be there,’ our current moment seems best suited to ‘véjà du’—the ability to see ourselves doing something [virtually] we have not done physically.”
This encapsulates so much of modern existence. We curate versions of ourselves—our digital avatars, social media profiles, AI-enhanced personas—rather than simply being.
Complacency in Progress
Rosen warns against assuming that every technological advancement is an improvement. She highlights a collective complacency, particularly in dating, socialization, and even decision-making.
“The problem is our collective complacence in assuming that change brings improvement.”
One of the most jarring examples is Tinder’s marketing slogan:
“Tinder is how people meet. It’s like real life, but better.”
But is it better? Or just more efficient, gamified, and curated?
What is lost when we optimize human relationships through swipes and algorithms rather than lived experiences, awkward conversations, and the organic unpredictability of real connection?
Simulated vs. Real: When Technology Fills Every Space
Another key thought-provoking idea Rosen presents is that we are reaching a point where we prefer the simulated to the real.
“More and more, we prefer the simulated to the real.”
In small, daily ways, we allow digital convenience to replace real-world engagement. Google tells us where to eat, algorithms shape our opinions, and even our boredom is filled with microbursts of digital distraction rather than idle reflection.
“We now must remind ourselves that we are allowed to daydream because our default state is to use technology to fill interstitial moments with some kind of communication, work, or microbursts of entertainment.”
Even more alarming is the way information about something has replaced direct experience with it.
“Daily intimacy with the physical world recedes, little by little, while our attachment to digital worlds grows. More and more, we relate to our world through information about it rather than direct experience with it.”
This is why people watch travel videos instead of traveling. Why we watch TV chefs cook instead of cooking. Why TikTok therapy replaces deep, slow self-exploration.
“This substitution of information for experience explains why we like to eat convenient meals prepared by someone else while watching TV chefs create elaborate meals from scratch.”
The irony is brutal: we are outsourcing our own lives while consuming idealized versions of them through screens.
The Meaning of Experience
Finally, a last profound insight in the book comes from geographer Yi-Fu Tuan:
“Experience is the overcoming of perils.”
True experience isn’t about comfort or optimization—it’s about venturing into the unfamiliar, embracing uncertainty, and confronting potential peril.
Rosen suggests that by avoiding risk and seeking frictionless, curated experiences, we are depriving ourselves of the very thing that makes life meaningful.
“What even counts as an ‘experience’ today? Is it the physical act of going to a place, the act of digitally memorializing it, or some combination of both?”
This question lingers. As AI, the metaverse, and digital augmentation continue to shape our world, will we still know how to experience something fully, or will we just consume its representation?
Final Thoughts: What Do We Do?
Rosen doesn’t argue for abandoning technology—but she does urge us to be intentional about how we use it.
- Reclaim undatabased experiences. Not everything needs to be logged, optimized, or shared.
- Resist the pull of experience plagiarism. Don’t settle for watching someone else live.
- Defend the sensory world. Walk without your phone. Sit in silence. Be present.
- Embrace friction. Life isn’t supposed to be seamless. Growth comes through difficulty.
The challenge isn’t just recognizing what we’re losing—it’s choosing to reclaim what truly matters before it’s too late.
I am excited to keep reading and to determine how to make some changes based on my new awareness of my own actions to ensure I am experiencing life more for me and not through the digital narratives of others.
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