Hum really said, “What if we took everything currently wrong with society and made it just slightly worse?” And frankly, I believed it.

The most unsettling thing about this book is how little of it feels like science fiction. Constant connectivity, consumerism, targeted advertising, environmental collapse, AI, technology raising children alongside us, people being glued to personalized digital worlds. None of it feels particularly far fetched. It’s giving Black Mirror meets WALL E, and I mean that as both a compliment and a threat to my peace.

I really loved the exploration of what happens when technology becomes so deeply integrated into our lives that we stop noticing how much we’ve handed over to it. Navigation, information, communication, entertainment, memory, attention, even our understanding of ourselves. We don’t necessarily feel dependent because everything is so convenient. Until suddenly it isn’t.

And then there’s the isolation. Everyone is connected to everything all the time, yet somehow people are increasingly disconnected from the people sitting right beside them. Family, partners, children, strangers. There’s something particularly depressing about watching people become so accustomed to mediated experiences that the actual world starts feeling almost secondary.

The consumerism commentary also went absolutely feral. The constant cycle of want → buy → consume → discard → want something else is so deeply embedded into the world of the book that it becomes almost absurd. Except… hello?? Look around?? 😭

The technology and AI themes were especially interesting because Phillips doesn’t make the question as simple as “AI bad.” Instead, Hum seems much more interested in what happens when technology understands us incredibly well and becomes woven into our everyday lives. What do we willingly give it? What does it change about us? And at what point do we stop knowing where our own wants end and the systems around us begin?

As a 5th grade teacher, the conversations around children and technology hit particularly hard. Kids growing up with constant access to personalized technology raises so many questions about attention, boredom, curiosity, independence, and genuine human connection. The book made me think a lot about how important it is to intentionally create space for kids to experience the world without everything being optimized, personalized, or immediately entertaining.

Ultimately, Hum felt less like a warning about some distant dystopian future and more like someone took our current reality, turned the saturation knob to 100, and said, “Look at this. Really look at it.”

And I did. And I too need to go outside now. 🫣