If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger.

Wright is warning that convenience-driven technology can erode human capacities. The “push-button finger” stands for a life mediated by devices and automation—getting results without bodily effort, craft, or direct engagement with materials and environments. In Wright’s broader critique of mechanization and passive consumption, the line reads as both satire and prophecy: as systems become easier to operate, people may lose strength, skill, and self-reliance, becoming specialized in mere triggering of processes they no longer understand. The remark also implies a cultural atrophy—diminished agency and imagination—when living is reduced to pressing buttons rather than making, building, or moving through the world.