Why Presence Is the Last Human Medium
My friend Steven McCormick sent me an article by Derek Thompson called Everything Is Television, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. His premise is hauntingly simple: everything that isn’t already TV is turning into it. Social media, podcasts, even AI, all of it bending toward a continuous stream of video designed to keep us watching, scrolling, and half-listening.
He’s right. But what struck me most wasn’t the technology. It was what’s vanishing underneath it, the quiet, human parts of us that know how to pay attention.
Because if everything is becoming television, then maybe the last truly human act is to look up, notice, and be here.
We’ve Mistaken Connection for Contact
I’ve spent my career in design and storytelling. And for Rule29 and O’Neil Printing that is where my headspace is day in and day out. I love the tools we have today, they can amplify voices, ideas, and movements in ways that once felt impossible. But something has shifted.
We’ve built platforms that promise connection, yet they deliver only contact. We see more people than ever, but we feel fewer of them.
Attention used to be about care. When you designed, listened, or created, you gave a piece of yourself. You noticed someone else’s world for a moment. Now attention is something to be monetized, traded in seconds, measured in views, and optimized by an algorithm that never sleeps.
We’ve replaced the human pause with infinite play.
Attention Is the New Act of Kindness
Kindness isn’t a personality trait, it’s a practice.
And in that sense, attention might be our most radical form of kindness. To look someone in the eye when they speak. To listen without planning your response. To see beauty in the ordinary, even for a moment.
In a culture that rewards speed and spectacle, slowing down is a quiet rebellion.
When you choose presence over performance, you’re reminding yourself, and the people around you, that not everything has to compete for your attention. Some things deserve it.
That is one of the reasons I’m writing and publishing my book Being Humankind. It’s a reminder that we can live differently, that attention, gratitude, and compassion aren’t luxuries. They’re how we stay human in a world that keeps asking us to forget.
Technology Isn’t the Villain
Thompson points out that even artificial intelligence now wants to be television, endless streams of AI-generated video made for no one in particular.
But I don’t believe technology is the villain here. Our intentions are.
AI, design, and storytelling are tools. They can distract, or they can deepen. They can make us scroll faster, or they can help us see each other more clearly. The difference comes down to purpose, who we’re designing for, and why.
Maybe the real invitation is this: Instead of asking how to get more attention, we should be asking how to give it.
What We Lose When We Stop Paying Attention
Thompson ends his essay mourning the loss of inwardness, our capacity for solitude, reflection, and meaning that doesn’t need an audience.
That resonated deeply with me. Because when we lose our inwardness, we lose the space where empathy grows.
Stillness is where we remember what matters. It’s where we start to listen to the parts of ourselves that don’t need to be seen to be real. It’s where kindness begins, in noticing, not performing.
Without that, everything, our work, our relationships, our creativity, starts to flatten.
What We Can Do
If everything is turning into television, maybe the answer isn’t to turn it off. Maybe it’s to turn toward one another.
Tell better stories. Design for presence. Use technology with intention. Create moments that invite people to feel something real.
Attention isn’t just about focus, it’s about love. It’s the willingness to be fully where you are, with who you’re with.
When we practice that kind of noticing, in our work, our homes, and our communities, we begin to change what our culture values. We begin to make meaning again.
Maybe that’s the next evolution of media. Not everything becoming television. But everything becoming human again.
I explore this and similar ideas in my new book, Being Humankind — coming soon. If you’d like to follow along and get updates, visit behumankind.today.
#BeingHumankind #AttentionIsLove #PresenceOverPerformance #HumanConnection #CreativeImpact #DesignForGood
