The Visionary
Jennifer Kahn profiles a pioneer of virtual reality who questions what technology has wrought.
"If only cats texted, we'd know by now," Jaron Lanier said dryly, examining his kitten. The virtual reality pioneer has become technology's go-to skeptic. Teenagers "vigilantly maintain their online reputations," he writes, but are "driven more by fear than by love"—creating "a more paranoid society with a fakey-fakey social life."