THE quest for an experience has taken over giant portions of our lives. Everywhere, we are assaulted by endless opportunities and activities. We text and get texts wherever we are, even behind the wheel. We constantly post what we’re doing and where we are, letting friends know how active we are. We take part in ever more extreme sports. We work not on our own, but in teams and in social spaces, bullpens for offices, coffee shops for self-employed free agents. And when we go on vacation, we spend our time shopping, eating and seeking adventure. Even in Europe’s old cities of culture, some people might stop in at the Louvre or the Uffizi, but often just to snap a few pictures on their cellphones to prove they were there.

Trying to keep pace, cultural institutions are changing, too, offering more of the kinds of participatory experiences available almost everywhere else. Playwrights now turn theatergoers into participants or let them choose the ending. Botanical gardens are adding skywalks that let visitors traipse through treetops. Museums stage sleepovers in the galleries and dance parties in huge atriums that were built to be gathering spaces. The landmark Beaux-Arts headquarters of the New York Public Library, on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, a sedate research institution, may soon be transformed with the addition of a gigantic branch library, where the main draws will be meeting places and areas for teenagers and children. A ground-floor cafe has already moved in. Who needs Starbucks?

Some of these initiatives are necessary, even good. But in the process of adapting, our cultural treasuries are multitasking too much, becoming more alike, and shedding the very characteristics that made them so special — especially art museums.