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Artificial intimacy: Technology and human connection in her

In Tom Brosseau's 2013 song 'Cradle Your Device', the American singer-songwriter laments a curious case of quasi-infidelity, where a third party has driven a wedge between two lovers. Only, 'it ain't what you think'. As its title suggests, Brosseau isn't losing attention to another man, but to a device; he may be naked in bed, but next to a phone, he pales in comparison. It's a contemporary blues lament at once amusing, cute, relatable and deeply sad; a relationship play for an era in which people's most intimate relationships aren't with other folk, but with their telephones. For many, it's the last thing they look at before they close their eyes, the first thing they look at when they wake up. It's companion, reassurance, constant distraction. It's taken the place of memory: no more need we remember phone numbers, schedules or trivia. It's a place for self-expression, friendship, business, pleasure. It's a sex aid, held in one hand while the other one is used to masturbate. It's the forum for deep-seated desires, for expressions of love and for the cultivation of the self. The internet's 'information superhighway' was once sold as the ultimate window onto the world, but the modern-day device is a mirror reflecting - and flattering - its user. It's a technological cipher that takes the essentially solipsistic nature of human sentience - that we can only ever perceive the world through our own eyes; that '[o]ur subjectivity is so completely our own' - and funnels it back to the user in slogans of empowerment. Where do you want to go today? What do you want to buy? What do you like? What do you look like? This creates a symbiotic relationship that is, already, deeply interwoven with our brain chemistry - a constant feedback loop in which device and user feed off and into each other. By the end of his tune, Brosseau knows that he's no match for this 'other'. 'Well, go on then,' he sings, resignedly, 'cradle your device.'