In his book, The Poetics of Space , the philosopher Gaston Bachelard argues that our intimate spaces are deeply intertwined with our imagination and sense of being. When you curl up in a comfortable nook in your home, for example, your consciousness is gathered inward. You have control over this small space, in contrast to the wild, turbulent

And yet this love is a projection. The phone creates a sensation of intimacy without providing true intimacy. On a rational level, we know this; but our actual experience happens in an ambient scroll state. Now there’s a dissonance between feeling like your phone is a home and knowing that it’s not.

A computer, meanwhile, remains more functional. Phrases like “desktop” and “taskbar” create a metaphor that this is a workstation; you have “trash” and “files.” Of course, there are still work-like aspects to the phone and home-like aspects to the computer, but the phone takes on a far more domestic role in our lives. It is not a utility: it is an