Out of touch.

• Author: Ayres, Ed
• Position: Note From a World Watcher - Inventions and mediated experience

Half a century ago, industry brought us a plethora of "time-saving" inventions. As many wry observers have noted, the ultimate effect has been to leave us with less time than ever. What ever became of all the time that was saved by our washing machines, clothes dryers, riding lawn mowers, wrinkle-free clothes, microwave ovens, non-rotary phones, leaf blowers, and blenders?

Now, we're seeing a new generation of inventions that promise not only to save more time, but to spare us more effort--the effort of seeing, remembering, lifting a finger, or watching out for speeding cars. Among the new developments:

Smarty pants: In Japan, you can now buy clothes that react to the temperature around you, and automatically warm you or cool you. No need to watch the weather.

Highly informative hat: A major airline company's inflight magazine advertises a hat with a visor that's also a computer screen, so you can read your e-mail anywhere--even while standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon or while driving your car. Why look at the world around you, when you can look at the inside of your hat?

Finger-saving phone: If you say aloud the name of any person listed in your computer address list, the phone will ring that person up. Just say the name, no need to dial. It works anywhere within 150 feet of your computer.

Bug vac: a miniature vacuum cleaner for sucking up dead or dying insects. No need to actually touch a dead bug with your hand.

These items are just some of the more amusing manifestations of a growing transition in our world to a life of "mediated experience," in which technology either provides a buffer between you and some aspect of "real" experience (e.g., between you and the bug), or eliminates some annoying aspect of real-world experience altogether (e.g., the effort of pressing buttons on a phone).

Mediated experience offers some important benefits, to be sure. Telephones (the regular kind) save the time you would have to travel to talk to someone face to face. Cars save you the effort of walking or bicycling, or taking care of a horse. A plane saves you the effort of driving a long distance in a car. A "virtual" vacation saves you the trouble of getting to a plane.

The mediation of experience is getting more and more pervasive. Does this matter? Is there anything inherently good about having to touch phone buttons or dead animals? Maybe not. But the same trend toward the circumventing of touching that shields us from direct contact with...