The Future of Feeling: Building Empathy in a Tech-Obsessed World | Kaitlin Ugolik Phillips

An insightful exploration of what social media, AI, robot technology, and the digital world are doing to our relationships with each other and with ourselves.

There’s no doubt that technology has made it easier to communicate. It’s also easier to shut someone out when we are confronted with online discourse. Why bother to understand strangers―or even acquaintances―when you can troll them, block them, or just click “Unfriend” and never look back? However briefly satisfying that might be, it’s also potentially eroding one of our most human traits: empathy.

So what does the future look like when something so vital to a peaceful, healthy, and productive society is fading away? The cautionary, yet hopeful, answer is in this champion for an endangered emotion.

In The Future of Feeling, Kaitlin Ugolik Phillips shares her own personal stories as well as those of doctors, entrepreneurs, teachers, journalists, and scientists about moving innovation and technology forward without succumbing to isolation. This book is for anyone interested in how our brains work, how they’re subtly being rewired to work differently, and what that ultimately means for us as humans.

Editorial Reviews 

Review

“Challenging readers to think about what it means to be empathetic in a technology-driven era, this will resonate with those trying to balance a reliance on ‘always on’ technology with humanity and the capacity for empathy.” ―Library Journal (starred review)

“Journalist and debut author Phillips explores the interaction between human feelings and technology in a survey whose ever-shifting scope results in a collection of interesting parts…Phillips’s tone is optimistic about the devices and programs she covers…[in] this fitfully stimulating book.” ―Publishers Weekly

“In her persuasive debut, journalist and editor Phillips criticizes a culture rampantly prioritizing technology over real human connections, and she questions whether the two can exist synergistically…a beneficial report sure to spark discussion about integrating kindness into modern technology.” ―Kirkus Reviews

“Phillips provides a helpful discussion of empathy-building training for corporate employees and medical professionals. The author isn’t just a journalist with an intense interest in this modern conundrum; she’s also “a millennial in my early thirties,” so her concerns about the importance of infusing caring and compassion into tech-saturated contemporary life are particularly relevant.” ―Kirkus Reviews

“Ugolik Phillips’ new book is The Future of Feeling, an insightful exploration of what social media, artificial intelligence, robot technology, and the digital world are doing to our relationships with each other and with ourselves…The Future of Feeling is the perfect book for anyone interested in how our brains work, how they’re subtly being rewired to work differently, and what that ultimately means for us as humans.” ―Brooklyn Digest

“Phillips presciently probes the impact of technology on empathy and lays out what we can do if we’re not willing to give it up.” ―Newsweek

“The book covers key subjects and shared research and insights about managing digital communication, empathy, and healthy habits.” ―Glimmer

About the Author

Kaitlin Ugolik Phillips is a journalist and editor who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her writing on law, finance, health, and technology has appeared in the Establishment, VICE, Quartz, Institutional Investor magazine, Law360, Columbia Journalism Review, and Narratively, among others. She writes a blog and newsletter about empathy featuring reportage, essays, and interviews. For more information, visit www.kaitlinugolik.com.