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Don鈥檛 lose yourself in a digital world (Image: Patrick Zachmann/Magnum Photos)

If you want to be free in a digital age, must you switch off your computer, ask two new books, The End of Absence and The Glass Cage

WHAT is it like to be alive at the moment? How is our sense of self changed by what we experience? Can we even say there is such a thing as an indelible self of the kind envisioned by psychoanalyst Carl Jung? And, if so, what impact does technology have on it?

The End of Absence by Michael Harris and The Glass Cage by Nicholas Carr grapple with these fundamental, intriguing questions. Harris discusses 鈥渨hat we鈥檝e lost in a world of constant connection鈥�, while Carr muses on how automation influences us. Both authors are concerned with the cyber revolution and how it has affected society and the self.

Harris, in his mid-thirties, feels that he is one of the 鈥渢ranslators of Before and After鈥�. He points out that, before long, no one will remember a time before the internet, and asks what this unavoidable fact means.

At the beginning of his story, Harris is a full-time journalist. He spends his days emailing, tweeting, watching videos of dancing cats, uploading pictures of his lunch and so on. One day, Harris realises he has an excessive number of windows open on his computer at the same time, and a text appears on his phone from an ignored friend: 鈥淒ude, are you alive or what?鈥�

He fears he may be making an unnerving realisation: the internet has become the 鈥渞eal world鈥� and physical reality is being set aside. 鈥淭he daydreaming silences in our lives are filled; the burning solitudes are extinguished,鈥� he says. Longing for his lost solitude, Harris quits his job and embarks on a quest to regain the 鈥渁bsence鈥� of before.

For a while Harris boycotts the internet altogether, discerning that 鈥渋f solitude feels painful, it鈥檚 only because we don鈥檛 know how to be alone鈥� 鈥� words inspired by American polymath . Harris is eloquent on virtual narcissism, the 鈥渋nauthenticity鈥� of augmented reality, filter bubbles and web curation. He spends evenings at home, reading War and Peace, in the hope that Tolstoy might offer an antidote to cyber-surfeit. I suspect Tolstoy would have been tweeting himself senseless were he alive today. But Harris is sick of the internet, just genuinely bored.

鈥淚 suspect Tolstoy would have been tweeting himself senseless were he alive today鈥�

颁补谤谤鈥檚 The Glass Cage is also about how the digital age is changing who we are. Automation makes lives easier and chores less burdensome, but it also has 鈥渄eeper, hidden effects鈥� Automation can take a toll on our work, our talents, and our lives. It can narrow our perspectives and limit our choices.鈥�

Here, too, the main concern is our loss of alertness and individuality. The complacency automation breeds can lead to collective stupor: drivers even to the brink of a fast-flowing river or gaping abyss. Pilots, used to relying on autopilot, forget how to fly.

Concerning the promise one Google executive made that Google Maps would mean 鈥渘o human ever has to feel lost again鈥�, Carr remarks: 鈥淭o never confront the possibility of getting lost is to live in a state of perpetual dislocation.鈥� Silicon Valley鈥檚 obsession with streamlining people鈥檚 lives using software reduces the individual to 鈥渁 passenger in his own body鈥�.

颁补谤谤鈥檚 vision is bleak 鈥� and exaggerated, as is Harris鈥檚 description of a life of cyber sound and fury, signifying nothing. Yet both authors emphasise that they don鈥檛 want to return to the predigital age. Carr makes a crucial point when he argues that the real sentimental fallacy today is 鈥渢he assumption that the new thing is always better suited to our purposes and intentions than the old thing. That鈥檚 the view of a child, naive and pliable.鈥� And neophilia fuels consumerism: if people believe new equals good, they are more likely to chuck out last year鈥檚 iPhone and queue overnight for the latest model.

So technology is only an aspect of a bigger problem: the way extreme capitalism stymies the individual. Take Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg鈥檚 that people today can only have one identity, and even that acting differently with friends and co-workers shows 鈥渁 lack of integrity鈥�. We are, Carr says, 鈥渃reatures of the Earth. We鈥檙e not abstract dots proceeding along thin blue lines on computer screens.鈥� When the drivers of the internet convert us into market algorithms, or objects of surveillance, our unease is as much about inequality as about the technology itself.

Both Harris and Carr seek to disentangle the individual from the ties that bind, and to detach the 鈥淚鈥� from the 鈥渨e鈥�. The advice? Do (almost) anything, so long as it is genuinely felt 鈥� intended, rather than imposed. Do not sleepwalk across the internet, or elsewhere. If , go ahead.

On the other hand, beyond the dire compulsion of earning a wage, no one has a gun to your head: 鈥淭weet or die!鈥� We can exist passionately and distinctly, online or offline. We can develop complex, authentic experiences beyond the grasp of the most sublime algorithm, so long as we are truly and freely ourselves.

鈥淏eyond the dire compulsion of earning a wage, no one has a gun to your head: 鈥楾weet or die鈥欌��

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淗igh-tech psyche鈥�