Too much tech in hotel rooms, bring on the Biophilia!

There is a natural limit to everything, including the amount of automation in our lives, and as Amy Tara Koch reports in “Encountering the Infuriating, Overwhelming and Unwanted Smart Tech in My Hotel Room” (2023, New York Times,https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/11/travel/smart-tech-hotel-room.html) some spaces may already be automated beyond our current comfort zones.

Koch talks about her recent hotel stays: “These days, it’s all about making do when I’m greeted by the glut of smart technology in hotel rooms. Voice-activated lights. Chatbot concierges. QR codes on television sets. Mobile browser or app check-ins. Texting the valet for my car. Don’t even get me started with motorized drapes — attempting to view the ocean in Miami was as difficult as tackling Faulkner. It’s all infuriating. And overwhelming. . . . But please, can we go back? These ‘guest enhancements,’ touted as in-demand by hoteliers and the tech companies that make them, are not in demand by me. They have been, in fact, obstacles — obstacles between me and sleep, me and the view that I had paid for, and me and firm pillows (in Miami, that request was not an option on the tablet, and no human answered the phone in housekeeping). What was once straightforward is now idiotically complicated.”

Humans are social creatures, most comfortable interacting with other humans.  Sure, some will always enjoy interacting with machines, at least in some situations, but even they retain a need to socialize with other humans—particularly since many of the tech advances proliferating around us do not seem to have been designed using inputs (or testing) with actual live humans.  Humans do best in biophilically designed spaces, and high-automation and high-biophilia seem incompatible, at least with automation strategies dominating today.  Biophilic design boosts our comfort and reconnects us with positive experiences in our species past.