This weekend my dad struck up one of his favorite conversations: “You can’t even begin to imagine what it was like to grow up without technology”. My dad grew up in a small village in Limburg, in the south of the Netherlands. This meant that when he was young, television was only in black and white, with a single TV channel, in German. The day the first blockbuster place opened in a nearby town, his world expanded overnight. Every new technological step, color TV, American movies, and even email, felt like a leap into something magical.
For our generation, technology doesn’t feel magical in the same way. Smartphones, social media, and now AI are innovations that should inspire wonder, but instead often leave us drained. The entire world — every opinion, every culture, every piece of knowledge — sits at our fingertips, available within seconds. But instead of opening horizons, this constant stream of information can feel overwhelming. Where earlier generations experienced breakthroughs as clear expansions, we are bombarded by endless feeds and perspectives, all demanding attention at once. Rather than wonder, the result is often fatigue and even paralysis: with so much available, it can be difficult to make sense of it, let alone feel inspired. Research shows that this flood of digital information can create stress, avoidance, and even burnout (Bayer, Ellison & Schoenebeck, 2019).
This contrast highlights how digital disruption has changed. In earlier decades, new technologies were clear enablers; each advancement made life easier or opened up opportunities. Today, innovations are less about scarcity and more about overload. Platforms thrive on keeping us engaged, not necessarily on improving our well-being. Being “always on” blurs the line between learning and noise, and instead of marvel, many of us feel fatigue.
Maybe the real question is not whether new technologies will arrive, as they always will, but whether they can rediscover that sense of magic by serving human needs, rather than exploiting human attention.
Discussion question: Do you think technological innovation has lost its sense of wonder, or are we simply too saturated to notice it?
