The insight has profoundly shaped billions of families since.
But wasn't sure if this was exactly what you were referencing, or some other piece.
"a situation which Paul Valéry pointed up in this sentence: “Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign.” "
"technical reproduction can put the copy of the original into situations which would be out of reach for the original itself. Above all, it enables the original to meet the beholder halfway, be it in the form of a photograph or a phonograph record. The cathedral leaves its locale to be received in the studio of a lover of art; the choral production, performed in an auditorium or in the open air, resounds in the drawing room"
The whole essay is great, I'd really recommend reading it and Benjamin's other works.
1. Television/cable (absent a TiVo type device), things come to you (ads and programming were fixed and you had to conform to their schedule back in the not-so-old days). Early 2000s, we could download content (illegally), we could pay for Netflix to send us DVDs of our choosing, and the algorithm was benevolent: its recommendations were superb. Russian and French directors I positively rated -- ratings 1 through 5 stars plus a written review were permitted back then -- opened my world to suggestions for other movies that I got to select. Today, Netflix/HBO/etc display a limited UI set of options, highly hyped shows and movies shown repeatedly, and it now Comes To You. You have a tiny bit of choice, but not much.
2. Google search. Before, it was a resource for you to customize and find what you wanted: information about medicine, a product, or a store. Now, it Comes To You. You search for thing X, you end up in a rabbit hole of Y and Z topics or things, and a lot of things seem algorithmically generated or manufactured to steer you rather than help you.
There are many many patterns like this, from news searches to even tech problem searches and articles. Don't even get started on product comparisons. It's scary I can't even search on medicine interactions (I add reddit to the search field).
I should add, web sites all have their own mobile app so you get trapped, they can steer you, and you can't control ads, the UI, cut and paste, and so on. Thanks, world in which Things Come to Us now.
Such as it is: a heavy weight on pulling and steering us, and new generations growing up on phones not knowing it could be different.
Phones are an extension of our organ senses now. How will a world in which Things Come to Us and We Dont Go to Things anymore affect us cognitively long-term?
Technology continued to push this trend, reproducing art through photography and printing in books and newspapers let it move even further to meet people in their own homes.
These current patterns you are seeing are an extension of this, the relationship between art and viewer has inverted, art is now expected to come to us, the focus has moved to within ourselves.
Marshall McLuhan also expanded on this and the idea of technology as extensions of us with his work "Understanding Media: The Extension of Man" if you'd like to read more.
It does require an intense amount of discipline though, so wonder how well it will work for me in execution for hobby learning.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy2022BX6EspFAKBCgRuEuzap...