Elsewhere

One day, on my way to class, I enter a packed metro and get on my phone immediately. After a couple of minutes I look up and it’s dead silent. Everyone is glued to their screens. At each stop people shuffle around to leave or enter while looking down in their hands. No words were spoken. You just had to feel someone trying to leave behind you so you could make space.

The urge to return to my phone was growing. I couldn’t. To a certain extent, I am complicit in all of this. I build technology. It fascinates me. And yet I kept looking around because it horrified me.

The same thing happens at the elevators at IE; it feels too intimate to be in the same elevator as someone you don’t know. The rare “hello” or “bye” you receive matters as someone enters your elevator. That acknowledgment of existence feels genuine. Even speaking to a friend while someone’s there with you can feel awkward or taboo.

Building digital services has ultimately become a fight for attention. I’m not sure it’s possible to avoid it. That fight for attention has made the discomfort of being present with a stranger feel greater than the pull of a screen. There is a world in which tech can be built that serves people and cares about their well-being. It would devastate me to build a product that is optimized to suck the time out of someone’s life.

I went to Barcelona recently and had dinner alone a few hours after arriving. I was sat at the bar directly facing the kitchen. Watching the coordination of the cooks and listening to the sizzle of the pans mesmerized me. I ate slowly and savored the meal. A couple was sat directly to my right and two older women sat next to me on the left towards the end. By the time I had finished, one of the ladies to my left turned to me to ask if I was from Madrid. I’ve been living here for two years and apparently it shows in my Spanish. They were sisters from a small town outside Barcelona. One of them had never been to Madrid, but were going soon. So I gave them my recommendations, which barrios to check out, restaurants, and whatever other details I’ve picked up. They returned the favor for Barcelona. I went to the places they suggested the next day. The food itself was fantastic, but my night was made because they decided to speak to me.