Latest / Wellness in Today's World / Ep. 25: "The Body Digital": How Technology Shapes Who We Are

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Ep. 25: "The Body Digital": How Technology Shapes Who We Are · Wellness in Today's World

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Welcome to "Wellness in Today's World," the podcast where we talk about wellness,
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psychology, and everything in between.
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I'm your host, Debra Kawahara,
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and with each episode we have thoughtful conversations about how to live well.
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Today, we're diving into a fascinating conversation about
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the intersection of technology,
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history, and what it truly means to be human.
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And we have the perfect guest here today.
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Joining us is Vanessa Chang, writer,
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educator, and cultural observer,
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whose work has appeared in Wired,
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Slate, and Los Angeles Review of Books.
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She's here with her captivating new book,
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"The Body Digital: A Brief History of Humans and Machines,
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from Cuckoo Clocks to ChatGPT." In it,
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she takes us on a sweeping journey from early mechanical inventions
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to today's AI to uncover how our tools have reshaped our bodies,
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our minds, and our sense of self.
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Vanessa, we're so excited to have you here today.
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Welcome to the show!
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Thank you, Debra. I'm really excited to be here as well.
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Thanks for having me.
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You're welcome. Let's get started!
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So I just want to start, you know,
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what inspired you to write "The Body Digital" and why now?
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I'm always really struck just moving through cities and watching people,
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the way they engage with their phones and how technology just starts
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to choreograph and orient everyone's lives.
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I live in San Francisco. It's ~ you know,
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a home for a lot of frontier technologies.
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We've got three types of robot taxi kind of driving around the city.
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So the way our bodies and just my everyday life is constantly
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just shaped by different kinds of technologies,
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whether it's, you know, my phone,
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the robot taxi, or Uber Eats or something like that.
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So it felt like this moment where we're at this moment of shift.
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I was curious, you know, is this something so different?
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Are we at a moment like a paradigm shift or is this something that history might
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help us to think more clearly about?
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You know, as I read the book, I got the premise that you were saying the mind,
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the body, ~ the environment are interconnected
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and how digital technology may be impacting that.
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So as you were looking at the history,
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do you think this is a different time as compared to when you looked
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at historical inventions or mechanical inventions along the way?
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Mm-hmm.
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You know, I would say yes and no.
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~
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Okay.
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I think technologies have always been ~ part of our embodied dialogue with
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the world around us and with other.
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And that the way in which technologies like you know,
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some of the technologies I write about in my book are
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the most kind of fundamental, like roads and traffic lights
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or even technologies like writing or mechanical music instruments.
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All of these have played a really critical part in just shaping
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and preparing us kind of culturally and in an embodied way for
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the moment we're living in now.
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So I don't think it comes out of nowhere that we're having these experiences,
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but ~ they're certainly
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amplified in ways that are particularly kind of unique to this moment.
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The pace and scale, I think,
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of digital tools has really kind of amplified the impact that these technologies
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have how we feel, how we move,
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how we write, how we communicate with each other.
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With this connection between technology and our mind,
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body, and the environment, as you were looking at it,
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what do you see as benefits of it and what do you see as dangers of it?
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And how the connection between the things that we all think work together...
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I mean, the one thing I knew when I was reading your book is I liked
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how creative it was by the body parts and that you divide
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Mm-hmm.
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it up. But one of the ones that I just found so fascinating was handwriting.
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~
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Mm-hmm.
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You know, and you looked at the hand,
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and I think you've talked about it in one of your lectures,
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Common Core, how they decided
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Mm-hmm.
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taking away the cursive handwriting practice,
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of children. ~
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Yeah.
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I know for even myself, I encode things better in my memory when
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I handwrite it, as opposed to typing it on a computer or just orally
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Mm.
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listening to it.
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I wanted to talk to you about,
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you know, what are those benefits but also dangers as we are using more
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and more digital technology and those digital technologies
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are trying to predict our gestures,
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you know?
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I think the benefits are manifold,
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you know. I live really far away from my family,
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but I can call my mom on WhatsApp just like that and have a video call with her.
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And that's not nothing. That's a real kind of major emotional
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and visual connection that I get to have with family that I live very far away from.
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You know, it's also I think with digital technology sometimes it
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can really help make ~ processes more accessible for some folks.
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I talked about the robot taxis,
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right, that are ~ in San Francisco.
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~ I was speaking to a blind colleague ~ recently,
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Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
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and he was saying
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that he found using... so Waymos are one of the brands of self-driving
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car in San Francisco. It's a Google subsidiary.
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For some blind users it's been very empowering because they don't have
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to deal with human drivers who can sometimes reject
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them when they show up. It can kind of be tailored to them in ways that really allow
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them the agency to get around and move around cities and places in ways that might
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have been more difficult before.
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But on a more prosaic level, right,
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a lot of these digital technologies,
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you mentioned that they're predicting and tracking us.
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It's not like you're just using a digital technology.
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You know, you talked about writing and handwriting and type.
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It's one thing to
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be trained on a typewriter, right?
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It's not something that's connected to a particular platform.
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And of course, you know, like handwriting,
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a typewriter is something that,
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you know, trains your body to move in particular ways so you
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can communicate and express. But if it's not plugged into anywhere,
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it's this circuit there between your body,
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the typewriting system, and then kind of what you want to put out into
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the world via maybe publication systems.
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When you're plugging into your phone,
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it's so convenient, you know? You can type
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anything or you can plug in anything.
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"You know, I need this thing! I'm gonna buy it right now." But every purchase
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you make, every time you kind of log into an app,
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the movements that you make, which are very particular to you,
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you know, I think there have been studies that show that how people
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use their phones, how people use their keyboards,
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are pretty idiosyncratic when you think about it from an embodied perspective.
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And because of that, they can be tracked and predicted.
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You're like, this is this person,
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this is how they use their phone in this way.
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But that data is just getting
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hoovered up and used
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Mm-hmm.
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in ways that we can't really predict or understand.
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You know, I have a friend who is having a child.
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She didn't really tell anyone,
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but you know, the platform knew and started advertising things to her.
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So there are ways that the kind of knowledge,
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embodied knowledge is being, is kind of taken up
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by these platforms and technologies in ways that kind of even transcend like
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human-to-human knowledge, you know?
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And I think that can be very alarming.
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The term sometimes ~ that's used is "locked in," you know,
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people get locked
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Mm-hmm.
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into specific platforms. Like,
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I use this kind of app on an iPhone,
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and because of that, I'm into this particular kind of ecosystem.
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So I buy more and use more in that kind of way.
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Then you become locked into that kind of way of being,
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right? Into those kinds of systems.
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You know, and as you were talking it made me think about data that
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the tracking that all of these platforms are getting on all of us,
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you know? ~
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Mm-hmm.
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And you talked about, I mean, how many of us have put in the internet something
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and then all of a sudden you get a whole bunch of ads for that particular
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Yeah.
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whatever related to that topic that you put into an internet search.
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And I guess one of the things in your book that made me think about the dangers is
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Mm-hmm.
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the lack of consent in terms
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Absolutely.
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of the data and our movements and tracking and,
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you know, the one thing that I thought about,
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you know, you talked about our voices
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being very unique to us. You know,
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people
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Mm-hmm.
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hear something and it's like, "Oh, that's so-and-so," right?
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And I know that for some people when that Anthony Bourdain piece came
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out after he passed and they put together his voice in order to have him
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be able to speak during that...
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That documentary? Yeah!
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How disturbing that was for some people.
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And also
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Mm-hmm.
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the question about whose property is that?
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Mm-hmm. Yeah.
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And it really
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made me go back to ~ Henrietta Lacks,
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where they took her
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Yeah.
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cells and they have these Gila cells where they did medical research with
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it for decades without ever getting her consent to be able to use those cells.
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And now we're seeing this in the digital age,
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that they're taking things that we would normally think,
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that should be something that someone consents to you using,
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Mm-hmm.
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but we're seeing, you know, musicians,
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their music being taken, right?
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Mm-hmm. I mean, and in a way that...
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again, this is not an especially new problem.
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You know, as I talk about in
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Okay.
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in the book, people have used technologies for a time to kind of resurrect people.
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I mean, the Anthony Bourdain example is a really interesting one because they,
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you know, used a vocal deepfake to have him read parts of a letter that kind
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of talked about
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how sad he was and how he felt his life wasn't worth anything.
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And we know that he killed himself.
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So it had this incredible emotional resonance.
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So that kind of theft, that lack of consent just was so terrible.
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There have been moments in decades past when people have tried to
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use motion capture or body doubles or something to resurrect someone's image,
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often to sell things. I mean, that's really
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Yeah.
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the other piece here. How do we kind of have agency over our bodies when our...
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when they can be recorded? It's not just that they can be recorded and kind of used,
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it's that
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style or that kind of ineffable quality that makes it your voice.
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I'm really glad that you brought up the notion of DNA,
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right? And the Gila cells. 'Cause there's something about your voice that is like,
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I don't know, it's a little bit like,
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is it the DNA of your being or of your soul?
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There's something there that makes it particularly recognizable,
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right? And so it feels off and really wrong
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when people use that without consent.
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But it seems like it also feels off when people do consent.
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There are some actors, I'm trying to remember who they are,
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who have signed contracts with these companies so that they can have
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some ownership and agency over how their voices will be used after they
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die and that their estate will have control over it.
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And they're like, "Well, you know,
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it's gonna happen. So I'm gonna make some money off it now and for my heirs."
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And people don't seem to like that either,
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right? So there's
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Mm-hmm.
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something I think icky to people,
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Yeah.
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right? About these fundamental human qualities can be taken and rifted.
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It's partly to do with the embodied connection maybe to your soul that your voice
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has. It's something as well to do with creativity,
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because often the people who have enough of a vocal archive
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to have a deepfake, well they had a creative life,
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right? And they spent their life choosing how to use their voices.
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And so to kind of like have that off into the ether for like what is
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it forever that you know their voices will be used?
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I can see why it's troubling for people.
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Yeah. You know, the word that comes up for me is "deception." Like
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you feel deceived that it isn't
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Mm. Mm-hmm.
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that person that created this,
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that someone else kinda took their voice
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Mm-hmm.
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to make you believe that this person said it.
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And so that
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Mm-hmm.
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piece of deception and maybe underneath that,
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feeling foolish for, you know,
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perhaps being blinded that this really isn't that person,
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you know?
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Mm-hmm.
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So I guess I'm thinking is that part of that human reaction when they
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Mm.
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are doing these deepfakes or even the person
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Mm.
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consents, but then later you find out,
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someone took it and digitally re-engineered it.
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Mm-hmm.
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I think it's deception, but it's also a little bit of the uncanny valley,
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right? The uncanny valley is this concept that was proposed
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by this roboticist Masahiro Mori.
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He had this idea, this graph, right?
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And he was kind of talking about
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robots but it's really applicable to any kind of synthetic media,
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that the closer you get to being human-like,
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the creepier
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Mm-hmm.
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it is, right? They can talk about it with ~ 3D modeling,
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with vocal deepfakes, with robots.
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I feel like things are getting so close that maybe the uncanny valley is...
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the model's maybe going to start falling apart,
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right? Because,
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Mm.
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you know, I remember some years ago ~ there was
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a Final Fantasy movie where they used this like
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Yeah.
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3D modeling and everyone was talking about how realistic it was because
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the way that hair moved felt so lifelike,
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but something was off, you know,
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so it's like you're not close enough to life.
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So it's like something that's sits deeply kind of wrongly with folks.
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So there's deception, but there's also like,
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well it's not just that you're lying,
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it's that, you know, it's not human.
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It's not human to the point that it feels like it's close to death.
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And I think that kind of in a fundamentally way in people's core,
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it's being something that's that's not right.
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And I'm wondering, you know, like has the train left the station with AI,
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with people like choosing to participate and use these things?
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Perhaps, you know, so are there ways that we will have
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creative uses of these kinds of technologies that means that it doesn't feel like
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deception, that it's more out in the open,
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that that's maybe less of a a concern to people.
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I mean, I feel like the it's in the making,
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right?
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Yeah, yeah. And you talk about co-evolution of humans and machines,
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you know, and I wanted you to talk more about what does that mean for us in terms
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Mm.
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of our lives today?
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For sure. ~ When I talk about co-evolution,
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~ I mean it in a few different ways,
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right? That we're in kind of an ongoing dialogue with technologies.
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You know, technologies kind of create the ways in which we can communicate.
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I talked about writing as a technology.
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You have to
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be trained to write. You know,
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I don't know if you remember, did you have cursive classes?
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You probably did. I did, too. You had
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I did. You know, the A's. Right.
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~
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to be trained and you had to be trained to do it.
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And then as a result, you kind of evolved as a person,
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and that allows you to engage with the whole world of reading and writing.
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Then you can kind of put information out into the world,
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you can ~ receive information.
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So there's a kind of mental, emotional ~ evolution,
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but there's also a kind of physical one.
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So in today's world, people are
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pretty attached to their devices.
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Mm-hmm.
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I know I am. It's an ongoing challenge.
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And I think about the way... You look around and,
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the way people are posturally,
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right? And the way that they walk and are hunched over,
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right? Their very posture and their kind of ways of being are kind
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of ~ sloped around a phone and all the engagement of it.
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Their behaviors start to
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be shaped around this device and around this platform.
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And then with the advent of AI and large language models too,
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this kind of question of co-evolution becomes particularly fraught.
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And especially in ~ educational contexts,
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right? Like in universities. I mean this is the question right now.
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I wanted to kind of center this concept of co-evolution and dialogue because
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I want there to be a back-and-forth and to say that,
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hey, you know, there are these things happening and there
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are these technologies that shape us,
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but we can shape them too, and we must shape them too.
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So when people ~ use LLMs,
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you know, there are people who use LLMs like ChatGPT or like Claude for everything.
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They use it to...
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Mm-hmm.
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make their grocery lists, to write their emails,
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to write their breakup texts. There was someone who just did-
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I don't know if you saw this, this person did a study on the use of ChatGPT
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to write breakups, breakup emails and breakup texts.
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A lot of people do.
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~ Oh! Yeah, I'm sure they do.
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A lot of people use it for like advice,
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you know?
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So there's ways that you can allow that evolution to be an outsourcing
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of ~ your cognitive load, and then that co-evolution means that you're doing
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so much less cognitive labor or even emotional labor when it comes
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to something like a breakup text that it's really kind of ~ unbalanced,
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right? Or we can find ways, and I know people and instructors particularly
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who are trying to develop strategies for making
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you know, LLMs like a thinking partner.
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So there is a actual back-and-forth,
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right? It can help advance the way people think and advance the work that they're
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doing rather than just completely outsourcing it.
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So, that evolutionary or co-evolutionary dialogue between our minds,
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our bodies, and technologies,
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is dynamic. That's kind of what I really want to center.
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It's dynamic. We have to kind of continually,
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especially now with the pace of development ~ with AI,
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we have to kind of seize that and decide where we want to kind of center
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our own development in that relationship.
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You know, you talked about ~ instructors and we're both educators.
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Yeah. Mm-hmm.
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So I know
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AI is pushing us to think differently about how we teach,
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how we have students gain skills,
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and how we evaluate that. I mean,
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we're all having to navigate that.
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And the one thing that I think
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AI is challenging us is how do we redesign,
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whether that's teaching, whether that's our environment,
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the physical environment that we're in,
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whether that's just our daily routine.
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So I wanted to ask you, what are some of your thoughts in terms
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of how digital technology is then impacting our redesign of cities,
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of schools, of all
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Mm-hmm.
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kinds of different things?
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I personally think that we cannot divorce AI as a field.
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And you know, AI is one of those terms that ~ is doing a lot of work,
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you know.
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Mm-hmm.
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It encompasses a lot of tools,
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technologies, platforms, fields,
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methods of study. And so AI can be anything from an LLM like Claude
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to autocomplete on your phone, to...
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Yeah.
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the robo-taxis driving around San Francisco.
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So there's that. And I think we're at a moment where it's very difficult
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to separate the deployment of AI from the corporate context in which it's largely
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Yeah. Mm-hmm.
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being manufactured.
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So because of that, those are entangled when it comes to the redesign of cities,
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technologies, and schools and all the institutions
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and systems by which we live our lives.
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I know there's a lot of pressure towards efficiency and kind
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of return on investment, right,
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when it comes to educational systems.
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Students often have to spend a lot to go to a school and they want
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to understand what they're gonna kind of get out of it.
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And a lot of times, you know, as an educator,
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I often struggled with students wanting to get the good grades so that it would,
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you know, get them where they wanted to go after college.
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There's so much less space, I think,
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and so much less breathing space for being intentional about
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the design of the spaces that we're building for community and
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for each other because they're so oriented towards success and what
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you get back from what you put in.
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Mm-hmm.
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So with that caveat, ~ I think that
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the ways in which AI is being kind of willy-nilly integrated into educational
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contexts is a bit concerning. I know some people in classrooms are just trying
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to go back to pen and paper and not have it in there.
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Mm-hmm. Yeah.
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And even if you do have university-specific models for something like ChatGPT,
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I mean,
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students can still access the free one,
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right? So, too, when it comes to cities.
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I talked a little bit about Waymos in my city and the
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self-driving cars. Well, many cities are trying to kind of move toward
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a "smart city" model where... again,
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this kind of catch-all term "AI" is being,
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~ algorithms are used to, you know,
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get us towards more efficient systems,
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to time our traffic lights, to assess how everyone's doing on these kind
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of different markers of of success when it comes to a city.
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To some degree I think it can work.
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But I often think there's not enough kind of centering
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of communities, right, when it comes to the implementation of these systems
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~ into the whole world around us,
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right? Who has a stake in the world that we're making?
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Who has a stake in the cities that we're living in?
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And is efficiency or better traffic or anything that...
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are these the kind of primary goals which we should be moving?
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It's worth taking a step back being like,
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there are these amazing tools at our disposal.
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Some of them should be used in this venue,
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but maybe not this venue.
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I think as you were speaking, it's...
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who's benefiting from the way that these tools are then implemented
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to be used among us, right? And you know,
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I think you're talking about this at this larger systemic level
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of you know, we live in a capitalist society,
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so that is going to drive some of the ways that these technologies are used.
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So I wanted to ask you, you know,
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given that context, what habits or practices can help
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us to stay aware of how technology is shaping and impacting us?
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That's a really wonderful question because I think we live in a moment
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of great tension where we have individual agency,
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but that's... you know, individual practices are not gonna be the thing that changes
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what we need to. So, you know,
24:00
one of the things that I started doing a couple of years ago,
24:03
which has been absolutely transformative for my life,
24:06
is not to sleep next to my phone.
24:08
It's in another room.
24:09
And, you know, the benefits are I'm not doom scrolling or hope fishing
24:14
Yeah.
24:15
until late at night or early in the morning as soon as I get up,
24:18
and blue light and all of that.
24:20
So it gives me that kind of moment of pause to kind of be in my body and to
24:24
be in a body. A good friend of mine does a lot of work on ~ silence
24:28
as a strategy and kind of communication avoidance and the ways in which,
24:34
you know, he traces...
24:35
he traces a history from monasteries to meditation retreats to these kind
24:40
of like wifi jammer zones where you
24:42
Mm-hmm.
24:43
can't access things. So I think it's really important to build those pockets
24:47
of space and silence into your life so you can reflect on your
24:50
own personal relationship with technology.
24:53
But like I said, I don't think that these are solutions for some of the bigger
24:58
infrastructural changes that are...
25:00
sometimes can be a little dangerous,
25:02
right? So... I think always it's important to be in community with each other,
25:07
because something like LLMs are becoming so ~ convincing as like interlocutors
25:13
and kind of chat partners and that kind of amplifies the kind of divorce from each
25:18
other that social media has done.
25:21
Talking to other people ~ is just
25:24
gonna help you be in a body and to kind of check in on how people are doing.
25:28
You know, one of the major interests my book has is thinking about who
25:33
has a stake in technology and who it's for.
25:35
You know, some of the examples I use are of people who have accessibility needs with
25:41
technologies.
25:41
Mm-hmm.
25:42
Are those people, you know, part of how you're
25:45
building your community and who is in your life?
25:48
I think that can give you kind of insight of what technology is doing
25:52
and working for you and for other people.
25:54
So that's nourishing that community with each other.
25:57
You know, does it expand or contract your horizons is like an important
26:00
~ assessment tool, right?
26:02
Yeah. So I mean, the word that came to me was "connection" and the other word
26:07
Mm-hmm.
26:08
is "relationship."
26:09
It's known that humans need connection.
26:13
That's like one of the factors that we always find in terms of longevity,
26:18
in terms of satisfaction, and
26:22
really examining how we're using our technology.
26:25
Is it helping in terms of connection and relationship or is it hindering it?
26:29
And you're kind of saying really to examine that,
26:33
and is it bringing more community to you or not?
26:37
You know, one of the things that I really liked about your book is
26:41
is the "body" part, you know, because
26:43
Mm-hmm.
26:43
I think...
26:44
or I often did not think about how it may be changing my body in connection
26:50
to my mind and my environment.
26:52
I just wanted you to talk a little bit about,
26:55
you know, what are small everyday things that people can do to stay connected
27:00
or reconnect to their bodies in their digital world?
27:04
Because like you talked about,
27:06
yeah, us being on our phone or us being on the
27:10
computer, on these different platforms and apps,
27:13
it's now becoming almost second nature.
27:16
So I wanted
27:17
Mm-hmm.
27:17
you to talk about how do we become,
27:20
you know, aware of our bodies?
27:23
I mean, what I have to say is probably what most would have to say.
27:26
It's to kind of use your body and live in your body and enjoy being in your body,
27:30
right? Go for walks, go, you know,
27:32
like have a little dance. ~ One thing I was doing while writing this book would
27:37
~ sometimes be
27:38
working at a standing desk and putting on some good music while I was writing
27:42
it and writing while kind of standing and dancing a little bit.
27:47
I think being reminded that you have a body,
27:50
you are a body, and that it's amazing,
27:53
however you slice it, is really important.
27:55
And to just enjoy what it gives you and to kind of untether from...
28:00
Untethering, you know, I talked about
28:01
not having my phone near me, but untethering from the platforms and everything.
28:05
I don't have social media apps on my phone.
28:08
~
28:09
Hmm.
28:09
I have accounts because I live in this world and it's kind of strategic,
28:13
but I don't have
28:14
Yeah.
28:14
them on my phone. And I try to think first before doing that kind of connection.
28:18
So just getting out and enjoying the world around us and going for walks
28:22
in ways that
28:23
allow you to look at everything that is amazing.
28:25
And also, I think digital technology is amazing!
28:28
In my work, in my day-to-day, one of my major focuses is I work in the field
28:34
of kind of art and technology.
28:36
So I'm constantly seeing what people can do in really creative ways with tech that
28:41
can invite us to experience our bodies in wonderful ways.
28:45
So looking at art, even if it's digital art,
28:49
that's a great
28:50
you know, way to kind of use that tool to kind of allow you to connect with
28:54
the intentions that someone else has put out into the world to,
28:57
like, make something beautiful or interesting.
28:58
I think these are all kind of important strategies.
29:01
Yeah. Again, that it could be used in beneficial and positive ways.
29:06
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
29:07
There's no
29:08
like all or nothing. And it's being intentional in the way that you use it,
29:14
is what I'm hearing you say.
29:16
Yeah, absolutely.
29:17
So okay, we're gonna close up.
29:19
So I'm gonna give you my final question.
29:22
~
29:23
Okay!
29:23
You know, what are one or two key takeaways that you would want
29:28
the audience members to get from you,
29:31
~ from your work, from your research,
29:34
from, you know, looking at this ~ with your lens today?
29:40
Yeah, thank you for asking that.
29:42
I, you know, yeah, would love people to engage with the book kind of more deeply,
29:46
but as a key takeaway, I wanna return to this notion of evolution and dialogue,
29:52
right?
29:53
You know, technologies shape us and they structure our experience
29:56
and they always have. And that's just a central part of the human story.
30:00
That, you know, it's not us and technologies;
30:03
they are us, right? They are extensions of us,
30:07
they express us, they shape us,
30:08
but also we shape them and they allow us to do amazing things.
30:14
They allow... technologies, whether it's writing or typing or email or whatever,
30:18
allow us to do incredible things that can amplify connection,
30:21
that can ~ amplify creativity.
30:24
We have the capacity, you know,
30:27
to express ourselves and to use technologies in ways that can be more connected
30:33
to each other, that can express ourselves more,
30:35
and they can kind of like push back on some of these systems.
30:39
But you do have to remember that it's this kind of ongoing dialogue.
30:42
You have to actively participate in that.
30:44
Yeah. ~ Vanessa, you know, thank you for joining us.
30:48
I mean, I think to me what you highlighted is we have to
30:53
be actively engaged with technology in shaping it,
30:58
in understanding it, to be informed as it progresses,
31:03
because we know it's here to stay.
31:05
And I love the word of
31:08
co-creation and amplification,
31:11
that it can do those two things if we're working for it to benefit us.
31:17
Thank you so much for being here.
31:19
I really appreciate it. I thought your insights were
31:23
so powerful and thought-provoking.
31:26
Thank you so much. Pleasure to speak to you and to be here today.
31:30
I want to thank our listeners for tuning in to "Wellness in Today's World."
31:35
And if you're interested in sharing the episode with others,
31:40
I ask you to do so. And, as always,
31:43
remember: Wellness is a journey,
31:45
not a destination. Until next time,
31:48
stay curious, stay balanced, and take care of yourself.