Being There, Now

Presence, mediation, and what emerges between them

A friend of mine spent the last thirty years in internet marketing. He did well—better than most—and understands platforms, funnels, and audience behavior as well as anyone I know. What surprised me wasn’t his success, but what he decided to do next. His newest venture isn’t digital at all. It’s an in-person entertainment company. He told me the same thing keeps coming up in conversations and surveys: people want to be in a room together again. Not networking. Not content. Just physically present with other people.

I’ve started noticing versions of this elsewhere, too. Nothing dramatic. Just a quiet shift in how being there is described. In-person events are now framed as “real” or “screen-free,” language that would have sounded redundant not long ago. No one used to advertise reality as a feature. The fact that we do now suggests something subtle has changed. Showing up carries a different kind of weight, as if presence itself has become more intentional. Almost ceremonial.

I saw this recently with events like EarlyBird.club, a pop-up dance night for middle-aged women who have work, families, and responsibilities the next morning. It’s not marketed as a party so much as a contained window—music, movement, then home before it costs too much, especially sleep. What stood out wasn’t the novelty of it, but the tone. The appeal was permission instead of hype. A few hours of being fully there, without documentation, without a feed, without having to explain why that mattered.

But there’s an inherent tension built into this energy, and it shows up most clearly at live concerts. I’ve been going to see bands my entire life. Thousands of shows. Over the last twenty years, the dynamics have shifted. More people hold up their glowing phones instead of cigarette lighters. Some artists have chosen to ban phones at their shows. They ask you to secure them beforehand or security policies the venue during the concert. Either way, they’re saying, “Being here, in the moment. This matters.” The crowds comply, often gratefully.

However, here’s where the tension lies: Most of the people at the live concert probably enjoy the band’s music on Spotify. If the fan is in their 20s or 30s, they discovered the band via algorithm, whether on Spotify or TikTok. They’ve enjoyed this band often alone, with earbuds, on a phone.

The phone is both the portal to the artist and the barrier to intimacy—at the same time. The device is eternally present. Because of that, presence now needs to be enforced.

There’s a cost to being there, and it shows up in small, practical ways. Someone has to stay with the kids. Someone has to get up early the next morning. You’re already tired when the show starts. The venue is farther than you remembered. By the time you’re standing in line, you’re doing the math—about time, money, energy, sleep. It would be easier to stay home and watch a YouTube clip later. It would certainly be cheaper.

Now our presence becomes selective, hence the signaling. Some people can afford all of the costs to attend, and others can’t afford any of them.

In the future mirror, it starts to look like a quiet split. Two ways of moving through culture take shape. One is mediated, flexible, and always available. The other is embodied, bounded, and deliberately constrained. They aren’t always separate, and most people move between them, but over time the pull toward one or the other seems to follow exhaustion, resources, and temperament more than choice.

The split doesn’t seem to follow age the way earlier technological evolutions did. I know Boomers who spend most of their time on Facebook or Instagram, and Gen Zers who have gone back to flip phones. My mother-in-law is online far more than my Gen Z daughter—a small, everyday reversal that would have seemed unlikely not that long ago.

You won’t choose your path cleanly. It’ll emerge around you. “Real life” begins to feel more like a premium experience. A retreat, something you plan for carefully, almost the way you would a vacation. Meanwhile, online life will continue to absorb those of us who are tired, geographically removed, or simply overextended.

My Gen Z nephews watch movies while on their phones. So does my Gen X wife. Most of us are still living in both worlds at once. We have phones in our pockets at the concerts. Vibrations buzz the table when we’re at the restaurant. Everyone at the table must negotiate, ration, and eventually reclaim presence because simply turning the phones over isn’t enough anymore.

How long will it be before presence isn’t our default mode of moving through the world, but instead a luxury we schedule or purchase?