Touch comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth.
—Margaret Atwood from The Blind Assassin.
Since 2007, we’ve praised touch-screen technology as the key to our technological intuition. Well, Atwood’s line from the science-fiction roman á clef, The Blind Assassin, isn’t far off from capturing, in her essential language, the affinity-going-on-fetish we have for pressing buttons on personal devices–and what might be left after they’re gone. Ever ask Siri to tell the truth?