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As someone who has worked in tech for over 20 years, I think the backlash against modern technology is not hard to understand. A few things stand out: The social isolation of the digital age. We spend more time staring into phones than looking each other in the eye.
The polarization created and amplified by social media platforms.
The spread of disinformation, radicalization, and algorithmically optimized outrage.
A developer and founder culture that is still heavily male-coded, often morally shallow, and too quick to treat empathy as weakness or inefficiency.
The hype-and-hustle economy that startup culture has helped normalize inside American hyper-capitalism. The robber barons of earlier generations have been replaced by tech bros, growth hackers, and social media personalities who are often rewarded more for manipulation than for building anything durable.
The erosion of the middle class and the normalization of unstable gig work, especially for Gen Z and millennials, leading to a lower standard of living for many younger Americans.
Crypto, and the amount of fraud, speculation, and wasted energy that came with it.
Now AI: not just the technology itself, but the way it is being funded, marketed, and deployed, often with little regard for human creativity, labor, consent, or meaning. Yes, this is a negative list. Technology has obviously produced enormous good as well. But it says something important that many younger people increasingly experience modern tech not as liberation, but as addiction, surveillance, manipulation, and spiritual exhaustion. |