From Smith-Corona to AI

The drift from meaning to efficiency.

I read an article in The Free Press written by Josh Kaplan titled “Things Worth Remembering: Friction Makes Life Worth Living” (Feb 26). In the article, Kaplan quotes Kurt Vonnegut about how beautiful life was when we used to do the mundane things that make our lives meaningful such as typing a document on a typewriter or going to the post office to mail a piece or seeing a familiar face in a store. People may have considered doing these things as mundane tasks because they are repetitive, but the social value of doing them kept us from sequestering ourselves inside of home offices isolated from the world and motivated us to engage with society. 
 

Today, we often use technology to replace the very values we once cherished – the values that shaped me into the teacher I eventually became. The ordinary, mundane tasks of academia formed my creativity, patience, and my sense of connection to the world. Technology makes many things easier, but in the process, we risk losing the social and intellectual habits that once grounded us. 

I vividly recall pounding out my papers in graduate school on an old Smith-Corona typewriter. On the first pass of my master’s thesis, my supervising professor gently dropped the entire draft into the trash can right in front of me. That meant starting over – with no computer memory, no saved files, just note cards and legal pads full of scribbles. That experience forced me to think harder, revise creatively, and correct every deficiency before committee deadline. Those days are gone. Today, students use AI to do their thinking for them. They resist intellectual struggle because the answers appear instantly on a screen. They don’t want to think like researchers, and their curiosity is often limited to whatever helps them finish the assignment and get a grade.

We see similar issues with marriage and childbearing. Marriage has become a convenience product rather than a shared covenant between two people. Children, too, are increasingly treated as inconveniences – obstacles to freedom, convenience, and self-actualization. It’s no surprise that the fertility rate in the United States has fallen to historic lows; many adults choose not to have children at all, viewing them as distractions from what they want to build. And when children are born, we outsource their attention to screens because we have forgotten how to integrate them into the rhythms of family life. 

These examples point to a deeper truth: the problem is not technology itself, but the way we are forming – or failing to form – the next generation. Formation requires boredom, responsibility, presence, and the slow apprenticeship of ordinary life. And when we remove the tension between technology and ordinary life, we remove the very conditions that make learning, marriage, parenting, and community possible. 

While it’s tempting to blame screens for all of our personal and social ills, the real problem runs far deeper: formation has broken down. Parents and even teachers often use technology to smooth over the struggles of ordinary existence – boredom, the waiting, the conflict, the responsibility – instead of guiding children through these experiences. In doing so, we teach children that tension is something to avoid rather than something that shapes them. The very things that make us grow, such as struggling to write a paper, getting out of our homes and engaging others, and being responsible for the outcomes of our lives – are thwarted when technology replaces the mundaneness of ordinary life.

At its best, technology should help us become better people. It should expand our creativity and make the work of ordinary life more efficient – but it cannot replace the work itself. When technology is used to supplement and support the tension of learning, responsibility, and engagement, it becomes a partner in formation, not a replacement for it. The difference lies not in the tool, but in the way we choose to use it.

I do not miss the days of pounding out papers on a Smith-Corona typewriter. I don’t miss ink ribbons, correction tape, or trash cans full of discarded drafts. I would not trade the technology of today for the technology of the past. I embrace technology eagerly and am an early adopter of tools that help me revise with creativity rather than replace it. Technology is not an escape from the tension of ordinary life, but a way to enter that tension with clarity and efficiency.

The tools we use today can help us think, create, and engage more deeply – but only if we refuse to let them replace the struggles that make us human. Technology is remarkable, indeed. But it is not, and never will be, a substitute for the formation that ordinary life requires.