2 min readFeb 27, 2026 06:16 AM IST First published on: Feb 27, 2026 at 06:16 AM ISTWhen Auguste Rodin first conceptualised what would become The Thinker, the figure was intended to represent the poet Dante Alighieri, surveying the damned at the Gates of Hell. Over its many iterations through the early 20th century, however, the brass sculpture of a brooding male figure came to stand in for the modern man instead: Solitary, self-possessed, lost in contemplation. Over a century later, what might the search for a representation of the contemporary human condition yield? Would it involve a distracted figure, head bowed, shoulders rounded, face lit up by the glow of the device nestled firmly in the palm?Take, for instance, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the State of the Union address on Wednesday. Moments after a shout-out by the American President, Rubio was caught on camera scrolling intently on his smartphone. Or, at the BAFTA awards earlier in the week, where actor Paul Mescal, all brooding charm and award-season glow-up, was found lost in the dopamine high of notifications when the host called out to him. No one, it appears, is immune to the temptations of the algorithm.AdvertisementThe appeal of other rooms, other wonders has pushed humans to great discoveries. But if Rodin’s The Thinker wrestled with eternity and damnation, the tragedy of the Age of the Scroller is not that of distraction, but of perpetual absence — from the richness of curiosity, the fullness of human emotions, the push and pull of the here and now. To be always connected is increasingly to never be in the moment — to be always adjacent to one’s own experience, the blue screen an interface with the world.