27 Are We Adjusting to Our Devices, or Are They Adjusting to Us?

The tools we use to connect also serve to construct our social realities. This creates a fascinating tension between the built-in political values of our digital architectures and the collective norms we develop to navigate them.

In this episode, we unpack the academic foundations of how digital platforms mediate human-to-human contact. We move away from short-lived tech features to discuss how mediation co-shapes our subjectivity, altering how we view ourselves and construct our shared world.

• The concept of multi-stability, shown by how tools like typewriters evolved from assistive devices for the disabled to mainstream cultural assets.
• The distinction between embodiment relations, like speaking on a phone, and hermeneutic relations, like reading an MRI scan.
• Why physical and digital architectures, such as bridge heights or platform algorithms, are never neutral and carry deep political consequences.
• The critical boundary between human-to-human computer-mediated communication and human-computer interaction with digital assistants.
• The real-life emotional and social impacts of virtual spaces, demonstrating that online behaviors are highly consequential.

The historic 1993 LambdaMoo incident reveals how text-based violations, lacking any physical contact, can result in deep psychological trauma and permanent community distress.

If your virtual behaviors have direct, lasting effects on your offline psyche, how does that change the responsibility you hold for your digital presence?