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Not long ago, I came across a clip on Aeon from the documentary *Being in the World* (2010), directed by Tao Ruspoli. The video revisits some of Martin Heidegger’s thoughts on technology—ideas that, interestingly, feel even more relevant today than when they were first articulated over half a century ago.
What struck me wasn’t a critique of machines or a nostalgic longing for a better past. Quite the opposite. The reflection starts from a much more uncomfortable premise: technology doesn’t just change the tools we use. It also changes the way we interpret the world.
In the text accompanying the video, Aeon summarizes one of Heidegger’s central concerns. The philosopher observed that modern technology risks making us see reality solely through the lens of efficiency, productivity, and economic potential. A beach stops being a beach and becomes a real estate opportunity. A forest is no longer a forest, but a set of available resources. Gradually, everything around us starts to appear as something to be managed, exploited, or optimized.
This idea is especially compelling because it doesn’t just describe the twentieth century—it seems to capture our own era just as well.
In recent decades, we’ve built extraordinary tools. The internet has democratized access to knowledge, digital platforms have streamlined tasks that once required significant time and effort, and now artificial intelligence promises to automate activities we once considered uniquely human.
It’s hard to argue with the benefits. We’re more connected, have access to more information, and can solve problems at speeds that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago.
Yet Heidegger’s question isn’t about the advantages of technology. It’s about what happens when the logic that makes these tools useful becomes the logic by which we judge everything else.
As a designer, I can’t help but notice this trend. A significant part of contemporary digital work is about reducing friction, streamlining journeys, optimizing processes, and improving outcomes. These are perfectly reasonable goals. No one wants a slow website, a confusing interface, or an unnecessarily complicated experience.
But sometimes I wonder if this mindset is spreading far beyond the places where it truly adds value.
It’s increasingly common to talk about personal productivity, time optimization, attention management, or everyday efficiency. Apps that organize our tasks, algorithms that decide what we should see, platforms promising to eliminate any unnecessary effort, and tools capable of generating content in seconds.
All of this works because it addresses real needs.
The problem arises when we start to assume that anything that can be optimized, should be optimized.
Not all human activities share the same purpose.
A conversation with a friend isn’t better because it’s shorter. A walk doesn’t need to lead to a specific outcome. A shared meal isn’t valuable because it’s efficient. And creativity rarely emerges by following a perfectly optimized path.
In fact, many of the experiences we remember most vividly often contain exactly what efficient systems try to eliminate: uncertainty, improvisation, slowness, mistakes, and presence.
Efficiency is an extraordinary tool when we want to produce, transport, organize, or solve problems. But when it becomes the only standard by which we judge reality, we risk impoverishing our relationship with it.
The documentary features jazz musicians, chefs, carpenters, and artists talking about their crafts. What’s interesting is that they all describe something similar. None of them see their work as simply executing procedures. What they value isn’t just the end result, but the relationship they develop with the material, the environment, and the people involved in the experience.
A musician doesn’t just respond to a score. They respond to the audience, to other musicians, to the room, and to everything that happens during the performance. An experienced carpenter isn’t just working to produce a functional object. They develop a sensitivity to the wood, to time, to quality. A chef doesn’t simply feed others. They create a shared experience around the table.
None of this is particularly efficient.
And perhaps that’s precisely what makes it meaningful.
Modern technology tends to offer us increasingly accessible versions of many human experiences. We can listen to music without going to a concert. We can learn without entering a classroom. We can communicate without sharing physical space. We can generate images, texts, or videos in seconds.
All of this has enormous value.
The question is whether we’re starting to confuse access with experience.
Listening to a recording isn’t quite the same as attending a live performance. Reading about a place isn’t the same as visiting it. Generating an image isn’t necessarily the same as developing an eye. Having access to more information doesn’t automatically mean we understand the world better.
It’s a subtle but important distinction.
Because an increasing part of our lives unfolds through representations of reality, while many of the experiences that give depth to our existence still require presence, attention, and direct participation.
This question becomes especially relevant when we talk about artificial intelligence.
Much of today’s debate revolves around the jobs that might disappear or the new opportunities that could emerge. These are important questions, but perhaps not the only ones.
We should also ask ourselves what skills we stop practicing when we delegate certain tasks. What kind of relationship do we maintain with our work when more and more of the process becomes automatic? What happens to abilities like observation, patience, attention, or judgment when speed becomes the main value?
History shows that every new technology replaces some skills and enhances others. It’s not about resisting change or idealizing past ways of life.
The question is much simpler.
It’s about asking what’s worth preserving.
Perhaps the challenge isn’t to shield ourselves from technology, but to prevent the logic of optimization from becoming the only way we understand the world.
Because some of the things we value most still operate by different rules. Friendship, art, teaching, creativity, or a sense of community can’t be manufactured on demand. Nor can they be endlessly accelerated without losing something essential along the way.
That’s why I found these ideas on Aeon so compelling. Not because they offer definitive answers, but because they help us ask a question that may be more relevant than ever.
In an age obsessed with doing more, faster, and with less effort, are we still able to recognize the things whose value lies precisely in the fact that they can’t be optimized?
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