Everything has trade offs and as time goes on I value the benefits of technology less and less. I believe this has more to do with age than any sort of absolute value judgement.
I should stop at the grocery store on the way home.
For me it's long observation of tech improvements not improving happiness or contentment. More choices, more efficiency—just means more time trying to decide, and that you're expected to do more and context-switch more in less time.
I think there was probably a sweet spot somewhere along the line—or probably a bunch of sweet spots, for separate things—and in many respects we're way past it now.
The Douglas Adam's quote comes to mind https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/39828-i-ve-come-up-with-a-s...
“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”
> The total number of teenagers who recently experienced depression increased 59% between 2007 and 2017. The rate of growth was faster for teen girls (66%) than for boys (44%).
(https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/12/a-growing-n...)
So that's some evidence that we really are getting less happy. I would say the biggest change over that time period is smart phones became ubiquitous.
We shouldn't be throwing out tech where it's beneficial. But we should know where to stop.
Using tech and delivery media where it works is up to creators and consumers. Our preferences, biases, and vested interests are in where we choose to invest time and other resources. This isn't proprietary to magazines, platforms or tech.
Pursuing conversations about what do we *want* to do? what *can* we do? what *should* we do? sheds light on the Where and How.
"Luxury Media" purveyors can choose to be a magazine, app, or ps5 title, or they can choose to be where people will find/read/watch/play with what they're making.
There's technology in stationary too, but it's unsurprising. There are only so many ways of applying pigments and dyes to paper, and if you put serious money into the supplies you top out on practical utility very quickly.
Young people too are more looking for tactile media, smaller shops, smaller communities to chat with even, and so on. Handcrafted content is becoming more popular even within digital media.