A draft on why the e-reader and not the smartphone should be the blueprint for the world of digital artifacts:

The tech utopia for the people is not the tech utopia of the elites.

We need to stop thinking about technology in a binary way. It’s not about more or less technology. You very often hear that it’s essential how you use technology and not to overuse it. But then it’s forgotten that technology isn’t how it is because it had to be built that way.

The world of artifacts (human-made things) needs to be understood in a historical way. Things are like they are not because they had to be built that way. They are not built in the “optimal” way, as if there were a neutral scale on which something could be optimal.

The e-reader is an underground technology, and still it has amazing features that other technologies lack.

If we think of screens as bad for our eyes, we forget that screens are like they are not because they had to be built that way but because companies wanted them to be that way.

The e-reader shows us that we could have a world where eye comfort was the main feature of a screen. The reason why it isn’t is because screens that are good for your eyes are less stimulating and can’t catch your attention as easily.

We could have a “solar punk” world of artifacts where the technology was blending in smoothly. Where technology adds value to our lives without taking anything away.