The article is saying that offline/online is like wilderness/civilization — a classification that stratifies experiences and the their availability along moral lines as opposed to pragmatic choices. She also makes the point that it divides along individualistic vs communal lines of thinking, where being alone is equated with being ‘pure’.

For instance, the comment about not wanting to have to choose between being connected to social media and feeling bad vs not being connected but feeling better is a clear reference to the influence of apps like Facebook and Instagram, where research has shown that people tend to feel worse after using them (I’m probably over-simplifying here). If you think in terms of online as “spoiled” and offline as “unspoiled”, it makes you less likely to imagine that online experiences can be improved.

I’ll also give a personal example. I love to go backpacking and I have been able to take my children with me on my last few trips. My oldest wanted to bring a Kindle, which I was fine with. Some people gave me grief about it because I was letting them bring a “screen” on a backpacking trip. This seems weird to me - within a backpacking context a Kindle is lighter and more useful than a book in almost every way (can’t be used as tinder in an emergency but that’s about the only disadvantage). If you’re not willing to bring technology into backpacking because it somehow “spoils” things, then I would like to draw your attention to all those high priced synthetic fiber clothing, dehydrated foods, and the plastic, aluminum and carbon fiber structural components that people happily use to improve their trip. My Garmin InReach does not spoil the trip for me because I can communicate with my wife, it makes it safer and more pleasant for my kids.