In an excerpt from his book *The Small Stuff*, writer Ian Bogost argues that people have gradually lost direct, physical control over the machines and objects in their lives. He contends that unseen choices in design, business and technology have automated away everyday tasks — replacing buttons, levers and manual effort with computers — so that the sensory, tactile connection between human action and the world has quietly receded. It matters, he suggests, because that hands-on engagement is part of what makes people feel fully human in an age of machines.

Bogost uses the decline of the manual (stick-shift) car transmission as his central example. He notes that manuals fell from more than 15 per cent of CarMax's cars in 2000 to just 2.4 per cent by 2020, with makers such as Mercedes and Volkswagen planning to phase them out, and electric vehicles — whose motors need no gearing — set to finish them off. He cites Car and Driver's "Save the Manuals" campaign and philosopher Matthew Crawford, who argues that operating a car preserves a vital "bond between action and perception". Bogost's earlier Atlantic article on the subject resonated with millions, prompting a stranger to send him a decades-old, carefully stamped postcard — an emblem of the tangible connections being lost.