Losing bodily presence erodes the empathy that makes sense possible

Evidence

As the body disappears, so does our ability to empathize. Berardi suggests a link between our senses and our ability to make sense, asking us to “hypothesize the connection between the expansion of the infosphere…and the crumbling of the sensory membrane that allows human beings to understand that which cannot be verbalized, that which cannot be reduced to codified signs.” In the environment of our online platforms, “that which cannot be verbalized” is figured as excess or incompatible, although every in-person encounter teaches us the importance of nonverbal expressions of the body, not to mention the very matter-of-fact presence of the body in front of me. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 112

Categorization

• QUESTION: This is the deepest causal claim in the chapter — worth chasing whether Berardi’s sensory-membrane hypothesis has empirical support.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s prior reading on Deep Listening and on how disembodied digital spaces structure attention. — connects to: Forster’s 1909 story presciently predicted that mediated communication loses embodied presence — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 1024