The Flattening
I was spurred to start blogging regularly because of (1) a nagging concern that we’re increasingly flattening the human experience into one-dimensional soundbites, and (2) a questionably-founded belief that I have something valuable to say about that.
Sometimes, the richest company in the world energizes the conversation for you.
Apple’s “Crush” ad, released last week as part of its new iPad announcement, hasn’t gone over well. It’s worth watching it if you haven’t already. It’s disturbingly beautiful and ironically artistic. Plus you kinda need that context for this post to make sense.
Apple’s ads usually don’t miss. And they almost never miss to the point that the company formally apologizes. The core critique is that the ad taps into a valid, deep fear that society is crushing all manner of artistic expression into slick little devices, chock full of machine learning and doodads that can just do the art or the work for you.
Even if I think the reaction itself is a bit overblown—this add tracks with Apple's approach over the years of demonstrating the power of its devices—the sentiment behind that reaction is on point with my concerns.
Whenever something nuanced and complex is flattened into a single dimension, we should ask what we're losing along the way.
Welcome! If you find this post worthwhile, consider subscribing and forwarding this to a friend. Join me every Tuesday as I develop my working theory of Three-Dimensional Productivity.
We are looking for ways to optimize, to cut costs, to get more done, to do things faster…all of which can be honorable pursuits.
It’s not those ends I typically take issue with—it's when we don't interrogate the means. It’s our insatiable desire for “hacks” over an embrace of fulsome process. It’s our temptation to simply click a button to create instead of drafting and deleting and editing and trying. It’s our search for anything that allows us to avoid struggle of all stripes, somehow ending with the finished product without having learned a damn thing along the way.
The “means” and the process and the struggle matter. Using tools to make things easier and more efficient can be wise. But when we do that, we should consider what we're losing in the process. Using a hammer for nails makes sense. Using generative AI to write for you? Maybe, considering the circumstances and the amount of co-creation in play.
No to-do list item exists in a vacuum, and we shouldn't pretend as if it does. The path to getting stuff done should be calibrated based on who you are (as well as who you want to be) and life events swirling about.
So thank you, Apple, for accidentally creating a vivid reminder of the need to intentionally consider how we do what we do. Here's hoping they drop another video at next month's developer conference that fits neatly into my narrative.