Techno-romantic thought has been with us for at least two hundred fifty years. Every wave of technological innovation during the industrial, technological, and most recently the digital revolution has engendered new iterations of the same paradoxical response: Technological progress calls forth hubristic fantasies of unlimited, quasi-magical powers, while also triggering deep-seated anxieties about subjugation, dehumanization, and annihilation. This tension manifests, for instance, in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), where the eponymous hero's command of fantastical technology allows him to overcome death and assume the godlike status of a “modern Prometheus.” At the same time, he renders his creature a victim to cruel oppression and thus turns it into a lethal danger. Techno-romantic perspectives help articulate and mitigate fears about modernity. Rendering it possible to savour the fascinating aspects of technology while grappling with its threats, techno-romantic thought is neither inherently technophile nor technophobic, but can be found in the context of technological utopias like Ian M. Banks's The Culture series (1987-2012) as well as dystopias like the Wachowskis’ The Matrix franchise (1999-).

The techno-romantic paradigm construes modern technology as a force that can reach beyond the limits of physical reality. This, on the one hand, magnifies technology's powers and thus its perils, but also envisions it as a means to safeguard the human soul against modern reification. Associated with emotional, imaginary, or spiritual qualities, technology then corroborates the primacy of human consciousness and facilitates retreats to an immaterial realm. As Mark Coeckelbergh has suggested, “As children of twentieth-century romantic counterculture, we seamlessly fuse technology and romanticism.