Are you bored of the endless scroll of your social media feed? Do you swipe left before considering the human being whose face you just summarily rejected? Do you skim articles on your screen in search of intellectual stimulation that never arrives? If so, this book is the philosophical lifeline you have been waiting for. Offering a timely meditation on the profound effects of constant immersion in technology, also known as the Interface, Wish I Were Here draws on philosophical analysis of boredom and happi- ness to examine the pressing issues of screen addiction and the lure of online outrage. Without moralizing, Mark Kingwell takes seriously the possibility that current conditions of life and con- nection are creating hollowed-out human selves, divorced from their own external world. While scrolling, swiping, and clicking suggest purposeful action, such as choosing and connecting with others, Kingwell argues that repeated flicks of the finger provide merely the shadow of meaning, reducing us to scattered data fragments, Twitter feeds, Instagram posts, shopping preferences, and text trends captured by algorithms. Written in accessible language that references both classical philosophers and contemporary critics, Wish I Were Here turns to philosophy for a cure to the widespread unease that something is amiss in modern waking life. Mark Kingwell is professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto. 6 M Q U P S P R I N G 2 0 1 9 P H I L O S O P H Y • M E D I A S T U D I E S Wish I Were Here Boredom and the Interface mark kingwell An urgent, timely, and political analysis of the boredom that dominates our everyday immersion in distracting technologies. S P E C I F I C AT I O N S /dr369T08 April 2019 -5,7a755pl7l5Ss7p 4phi-lv bAU1 4s-i-lv Dc1 kssi-- $.9ru nisl B -isl sSn66 Sn $9.9d2 6u9r931 n NVF 6u9r93 0g99T omot.oN.0