Ian Bogost's 'The Small Stuff' Argues for Sensory Pleasures Against Digital Dematerialization

In his new book "The Small Stuff," Ian Bogost, a professor and columnist at The Atlantic, argues that digital mediation has stripped everyday life of sensory gratification. He contrasts tactile experiences like the squelch of masonry paint or the mechanism of a car's shift knob with the frictionless but flat interactions of smartphones, Amazon, Uber Eats, and Netflix. Bogost's slim, efficient volume urges readers to focus on mundane pleasures—such as the clatter of an ice machine or the thinness of a baseball ticket—to resist what he calls "dematerialization." The book taps into digital exhaustion nearly two decades after the first iPhone, but Bogost's curmudgeonly stance sometimes rings hollow, as he himself previously argued that the pre-internet era was horrible. The author praises hobbies like fly-fishing, crafts like knitting, and trades like woodworking, yet notably omits visual art, which offers its own sensory parade in museums. Bogost's earlier work "Alien Phenomenology" (2012) helped popularize object-oriented ontology, but "The Small Stuff" remains practical rather than radical, leaving bigger questions about the value of sensation unanswered. The essay also references Junichiro Tanizaki's 1933 "In Praise of Shadows" as a historical precedent for lamenting technological loss.