The Lost Art of Presence

Reclaiming Connection in a Digital Age

When we started our exploration here back in 2021, I specifically called out Marshall McLuhan. Since we’ve meandered around a bit since then, as a refresher, McLuhan was a key figure in the field of study known as Media Ecology. His most famous line, “the media is the message,” is still frequently quoted, but the full breadth of his writings was a lot more than that.

In a recent issue of The New Atlantis, Nicholas Carr sheds light on a forerunner to McLuhan, Harold Innis. Innis, a Canadian professor in the early 20th century, made significant contributions to a wide array of subjects. Of particular interest to us, he laid the groundwork for theories that McLuhan and his followers would later expand upon. McLuhan himself acknowledged this influence, stating, "I am pleased to think of my own book, The Gutenberg Galaxy, as a footnote to the observations of Innis on the subject of the psychic and social consequences, first of writing then of printing."¹

You can see a quick summary of the work of Innis here.

There’s a lot of great stuff in this article, and I would highly encourage you to go check out the full piece, but one part that stood out to me in the piece came from his “What do we do about it” section that follows the rather bleak diagnosis that frequently comes in these types of articles:

Deeply versed in classical history and philosophy, Innis venerated the oral traditions of conversation and debate, teaching and tutoring, that formed the heart of ancient Greek culture. In their intimate, human scale, he saw an antidote to mechanized media, a means of escaping the dominion of information empires. A spoken word may be as evanescent as a tweet or a snap, but the acts of talking and listening — together, in one place — remain unmatched as vehicles for critical, creative, and communal thought.²

Innis valued face-to-face dialogue, seeing it as a powerful way to think creatively and connect with others, unlike modern media. This idea brings back to mind Andy Crouch’s, The Life We’re Looking For, one of those easy reads I did in 2022 that’s lived rent-free in my head ever since. Specifically, in a podcast interview about the book, Crouch is asked in the context of a church minister what people should be doing to create the environments Crouch describes in the book.

Discussing the dissatisfaction that almost everyone has with their use of technology in contemporary life, Crouch calls up the idea of focal practices³. He talks about the importance of having “heightened meals” prepared communally and shared in a manner that makes the time unique (you can listen to the full question and it’s response starting around the 46:50 mark)

This is one of these recurring themes that I find myself landing back on again and again: the way technology steals my ability to be present. Innis’ notion of technologies of space, such as the internet and social media, mean that we are always everywhere (which also means we are nowhere in particular) in our mental space. There are days I could tell you more about the happenings in Jerusalem, Kyiv, and Washington than what’s happening along Main Street, Taylors.

Carr and Crouch emphasize the importance of the voice because it is inherently a limited medium that, by necessity, forces us to be physically present with one another in the same context if we are to have a genuine connection. Innis’s thoughts have many fascinating implications, but today, I challenge us to consider how we can create more intentional and focused practices and spaces where we can truly hear others and, hopefully, find the life we are looking for in the process.

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If you’re intrigued by the Focal Practices idea, check out Alan Jacobs on it here.

Social image by ROMAN ODINTSOV from Pexels.

1. McLuhan, Marshall. (2005) Marshall McLuhan Unbound. Corte Madera, CA : Gingko Press v. 8, p. 8

2. The Tyranny of Now, The New Atlantis, Winter 2025

3. The idea of focal practices comes from the in the writing of Albert Borgmann