The Causal Reversal Thesis

The Causal Reversal Thesis

The causal reversal thesis is Timandra Harkness's argument that personalising technology did not shrink our sense of who we are; a sense of self that had already shrunk is why personalising technology succeeded. She states it at page 16 of Technology Is Not the Problem: "We don't have a shrinking sense of who we are because of personalising technology. We have personalising technology because of our shrinking sense of who we are."

What it is

The argument is historical. Older structures that answered the question of who a person is have loosened, identity has become something each person must work out and display alone, and anything that has to be displayed also has to be recognised. Personalising technology, on this account, profits by supplying a cheap, constant, measurable form of that recognition.

It is a claim about where the cause lies, not a claim that technology is harmless, and Harkness says so more than once. She also records a worry that runs the other way: at page 243 she writes that profiling systems risk "nudging us towards becoming more like the cluster to which we were allocated".

In effect

If the thesis is right, taking a device away leaves the underlying need unmet, which would explain why people often feel restless rather than restored without one. The more useful question for a reader is which gap a habit is filling, and whether something better could fill it.

What it does not say

It is not tested by the book. The thesis is asserted and argued from history rather than measured, and our audit of the book rates it honest but untested.

It does not settle displacement. On whether time online replaces time with people, a 2020 Facebook deactivation experiment found offline time with family and friends rose when the platform was removed, which cuts against the book's general claim on that one question.

It is compatible with Christine Rosen's account of what mediated life loses. The two books differ mostly on emphasis and values, not on facts.

Sources

  1. Harkness, T. (2024). Technology Is Not the Problem. HQ, HarperCollins. pp. 16, 243, 250.
  2. Allcott, H., Braghieri, L., Eichmeyer, S., & Gentzkow, M. (2020). "The welfare effects of social media." American Economic Review, 110(3), 629-676. doi:10.1257/aer.20190658.