Just Because We Can, Doesn't Mean We Should

Why the Apple Vision Pro makes me want to break up with tech

Happy Valentine’s Day! In honor of the holiday, please enjoy the following break-up story.

Photograph: Apple

One of my favorite books that became a movie that became a limited series on Hulu is High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. I have loved that book for as long as I’ve loved books, and every time I come back to it, something new jumps out to me.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about the part when Rob (played in the movie by John Cusack, and in the Hulu series by Zoe Kravitz…seriously, it’s amazing) reconnects with Charlie, his most glamorous ex-girlfriend. Because he called her up out of the blue, she asks him if he’s going through one of those “what-does-it-all-mean” things. She explains that she’s heard recently from another ex-boyfriend who seemed to be in the midst of such a crisis.

Rob lies and says he’s not; he’s just looking to reconnect. So, Charlie invites him to a dinner party, and while he’s there, Rob realizes that Charlie is awful (and probably always was) and, with nothing to lose, he asks her directly why she dumped him.

She’s furious. In the film version, Catherine Zeta-Jones, who plays Charlie, let’s out a string of increasingly exasperated F-bombs and says, “You are going through one of those what-does-it-all-mean things.” To which Rob replies, “I am, actually, yes. Yes, indeed. Very much so.” This whole scene in the movie is recreated verbatim from the book, and Cusack nails the delivery.

I’m not reaching out to any ex-girlfriends or anything, but I, too, am going through one of those what-does-it-all-mean things, “very much so.” It’s not a mid-life crisis, exactly, more of a mid-life check-in.

And what brought on this recent bout of self-questioning, you ask? Why, the release of Apple’s Vision Pro “mixed reality” goggles, of course!

Stay with me.

I’ve always been an early adopter of new gadgets; it’s hereditary—my dad was too. But recently, something has changed. This past September was the first time, I think ever, that when a new iPhone was released, I didn’t upgrade. In fact, I downgraded—I missed the smaller form factor of my iPhone 13 mini, so I sold my 14 Pro and went back to the previous generation.

Still, the Vision Pro is the first truly innovative gadget that Apple has released in years, and I should be squarely in their target demographic. And yet I feel no pull, no desire, for it. I see the promotional photos and videos of people pinching around in mid-air with extra-large ski goggles strapped to their faces, and I want none of it.

What’s wrong with me? Vision Pro is shiny and new and futuristic and made by Apple and I should want it, but I don’t. What-does-it-all-mean?

To answer this, my mind goes—naturally—to the eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume, and his explication of the “Is and Ought” problem. In short, Hume argued that we cannot derive from what is a sense of what ought to be. To put it another way, just because something is true or factual, it doesn’t follow that it should (or ought to) be that way.

More to the point, just because I can now strap a $3,500 computer to my face, doesn’t mean I should.

This leap from acknowledging that technological progress has historically led to human betterment to the inference that “therefore all individual instances of technological progress are good” is what Matthew Yglesias calls “the Techno-Optimist’s Fallacy.” To put it back into the is-ought paradigm: just because technological progress is (and has been) a significant factor in humanity’s development, doesn’t mean all new technological developments ought to be.

So, I’ve been considering the purpose of a new technological marvel like Apple Vision Pro and asking why it was made, with the understanding that “because it could be” is not a sufficient answer. I have found that in light of this question of purpose, many new gadgets lose their shimmer.

New York Times tech columnist Brian X. Chen addresses this question of purpose head-on in his review of Vision Pro. After spending a week with the device and testing it in a number of different scenarios, he concludes, “Other than being a fancy personal TV, it lacks purpose.”

In another read-worthy review in The Atlantic, Ian Bogost notes that Apple’s purpose for the Vision Pro may be “to reconcile, once and for all, the digital and physical worlds” before noting that rather than reconciliation, “it has only put the conflict into higher resolution.”

For the moment, it seems, the Vision Pro is without purpose, or at least a purpose it can actually fulfill. Indeed, once I begin to interrogate the purpose of many of the technological wonders I now take for granted, I come to similar conclusions about their pointlessness or, worse, I come to see that their stated (or unstated) purpose runs counter to what I want for myself. That is, by asking into the purpose of my gadgets, I am forced to consider my own purpose in light of them.

For example, regardless of whatever else it might be or do, social media’s main purpose is to gather data on us—maybe you’ve heard some variation of the saying, if you can’t figure out what a company’s product is, you’re the product. And hardware manufacturers like Apple—that often idealized (by me) company of artists, innovators, and revolutionaries—its core purpose, like that of its rivals, is to make things that people want to buy so that, ultimately, they can turn a profit.

Therefore, when I consider what my purpose is in relation to the large tech companies that increasingly encroach on every aspect of our lives, it is clear that I am meant to be either a product or a consumer. But just because this is so, ought it be?

I would rather not be thought of, primarily, as either—a product or a consumer. So, what to do? It’s too late, I think, to opt out entirely, though that doesn’t stop me from looking longingly at early 2000s-style flip phones at least once a week. I’m not ready to downgrade my tech that much—not yet, anyway—but I can resist the Techno-Optimist’s Fallacy; just because a gadget is shiny and new doesn’t mean it is making me better, doesn’t mean I need it. In fact, don’t we all feel—even if we’re not willing to admit it—that our dependence on internet-enabled technology might be slowly turning us into worse versions of ourselves? I do, so I guess what I’m saying is, I think I might be done being an early adopter.

Am I going through one of those what-does-it-all-mean things? I am, actually, yes. Yes, indeed. Very much so. Except, unlike Rob, in this case, it’s me who is doing the dumping.