Name: The Future of Feeling
ISBN: 9781542041850

Kaitlin Ugolik Phillips

An insightful exploration of what social media, AI, robot technology, and the digital world are doing to our relationships with each other and with ourselves. There's no doubt that technology has made it easier to communicate. It's also easier to shut someone out when we are confronted with online discourse. Why bother to understand strangers--or even acquaintances--when you can troll them, block them, or just click "Unfriend" and never look back? However briefly satisfying that might be, it's also potentially eroding one of our most human traits: empathy. So what does the future look like when something so vital to a peaceful, healthy, and productive society is fading away? The cautionary, yet hopeful, answer is in this champion for an endangered emotion. In The Future of Feeling, Kaitlin Ugolik Phillips shares her own personal stories as well as those of doctors, entrepreneurs, teachers, journalists, and scientists about moving innovation and technology forward without succumbing to isolation. This book is for anyone interested in how our brains work, how they're subtly being rewired to work differently, and what that ultimately means for us as humans.

Building Empathy in a Tech-Obsessed World

The Future of Feeling

Justin Jerome Price

The impact of communication technology is immeasurable. Social media alone allows for people who may have never known one another in the physical world to communicate and connect through vast distances. And yet, people feel lonelier than ever. Polarization runs rampant online; every discussion appears to end in arguments. And what once was touted as connecting people, social media appears to be tearing them apart. This is the driven force behind the book “The Future of Feeling,” by Kaitlin Ugolik Phillips. The book focuses on new and current technologies designed to help people empathize with one another and themselves. She explores the use of VR technology to help empathize with victims of human rights abuse, people with disabilities, and victims of racism. She also explores the use of chatbots in a therapeutic manner and how schools approach the teaching of social media in classes. Throughout the book, she approaches these issues with both a sense of optimism and also some caution. When discussing the VR technology, for example, she does discuss several issues concerning how people will use the technology. One of which being that people will use the technology as a form of vicarious entertainment rather than truly empathize with the subject. Another issue also raise was that people could craft technically fictional scenarios based on real-life events, which could corrode the trust people have in those narratives. Yet I found the discussion of issues somewhat unfulfilling. 

	The discussion of issues with the technology, while appreciated, felt too undeveloped at times. And not from merely a lack of focus on the issues. She devotes several pages in each chapter discussing the issues of this technology and even expresses the sentiment early in the book that technology cannot be the overall solution, but a tool. Yet, I felt that at times she did portray technology as a solution to some issues without fully exploring the ramifications or other issues generated by its use. Like the use of VR technology in assisting journalists to craft more engaging stories. While she does discuss the possibility of using technology to craft fictional narratives based on real-life events, she never discusses using such technology to craft wholly fictional narratives. I also felt the book never really delves deeply into the philosophical implications of such technology and instead focuses more on concrete ways people are trying to limit the potential negatives with such technology. Due to this, the book leans more pro-technoutopian than perhaps the author intended. 

	In conclusion, this book is a decent introduction into technology designed to help people become more empathetic and I would recommend people to read it to understand what the future may hold. Yet with the caveat that it takes a more simplistic stance on the nature of technology to help bridge the gap between people than it should.

Rebeca Keren Nuñez

Muy interesante. La verdad es que el planteo que hace no es menor y da para debatir. Me parece ademas relevante para la época, desde varios puntos, ya que si bien el titulo habla de futuro, el futuro es ahora. Ademas nuestras vidas están enlazadas con la tecnología inevitablemente, y no dejamos de estar viviendo en sociedad. Tiene puntos muy interesantes. Lo recomiendo.

The Future of Feeling Building Empathy in a Tech-Obsessed World

Reviews

Highlights