technological extravention

technology can solve any problem. or at least, that’s what plenty of folks seem to believe. lots of work (I’m thinking here largely about research on computational technology, but this line of thinking can also be applied more broadly) describes a problem and then presents some sort of technological intervention intended to solve the problem. every so often, I’ll see a paper describing how, in the process of attempting to solve one problem, the technological intervention actually led to more problems than it solved, and once in a rare while someone will argue that perhaps the best approach would be not to introduce the technology in the first place, but such critical reflection is, in my experience unfortunately rare. I’ve ranted about related notions in the past, particularly with respect to the ways in which companies and NPOs foist technology in places where it might not be wanted or needed, but never with a specific alternative course of action.

I want to suggest such an alternative approach here. rather than studying the impacts of a technological intervention, what if we to conduct a technological extravention? that is, how might our understand technology use, particular the ways in which that technology is interwoven among larger social and cultural constructs, by removing the technology? being a bit of an etymological enthusiast, I’ll admit that the etymology here is a bit off; something like “technological extraction” or perhaps even “technological extradition” might be a bit more accurate, but I think the neologism I’ve used helps emphasize the nature of the critique.

envision conducting a study of preventing a group of people from, for example, using text messaging, or sending email, or reading blogs, or tweeting (I suspect there might be a difference between forcibly preventing people from using some technology and people willfully avoiding its use, but I’d hesitate to speculate what the exact differences might be without further consideration of the specific technology and specific individuals involved). how would people adapt to such situations? how would the renegotiate their various social interactions that are currently mediated via these technologies? at the conclusion of the study, how might people’s long-term patterns of use change? obviously, there would be plenty of logistical challenges to overcome (how would you find people willing to participate in this sort of a study? how would you ensure that participants were complying with your requested non-use? what if the study disrupted the conduct of their work, connection with their families, or some other basic aspect of their lives?), but I suspect the results could be highly informative and worth the difficulties. while an admittedly small step in the direction I’ve suggested, such a study might be a concrete way of suggesting that, in some cases concerning technology, perhaps less is better.

(thanks to various members of the Social Code Group, conversations with whom started my thinking along these lines)

extremes

a few days back, I heard someone make the following comment. he was describing different reactions to the advent of some new technology (I don't recall exactly what), saying that different people felt very differently. the two poles of reactions were described as follows: "it was the best thing since sliced bread, or the worst thing since the guillotine." wow. since it was during a formal research talk, I had to exert a massive effort not to laugh out loud. "the worst thing since the guillotine"? is that a common adage, or did the guy just make that up?

unintended consequences

my apartment complex recently implemented a new parking permit system. until last fall, residents received plastic hand tags with an pretty uniquely identifiable iridescent sticker (ostensibly making them difficult to duplicate). as September 2009, they switched over to an electronic system. residents enter their car's license plate number (or those of their visitors, with a limited number of visitors per quarter) online. cars from parking and transportation equipped with cameras and a specially designed computer vision system then drive around the parking lots, automatically issuing tickets for those parked illegally.

nevermind for the moment the surveillance and privacy issues. those are certainly pretty complex, but I feel like they're also some of the more obviously problematic aspects of this technology. what I want to comment on here is a somewhat subtler impact I noticed a week or two ago. it used to be that going to the grocery store, the movies, the dentist, or wherever, one would quite often see hang tags for the graduate student housing complex in which I live. it's not as if I know or am friends with a very large fraction of the hundreds of grad students that live there, but seeing those hang tags created something of a sense of solidarity, of community; it made me feel like I was not alone as a grad student and that, even in this hyper-planned suburban area in which I live, there was a group of people with whom I could identify.

however, since the deployment of this electronic system, no one needs to display hang tags anymore. I didn't even realize that something had been lost until recently when I saw someone who had an old tag up that she had not taken down, which made me realize that I missed the tags. it was interesting, because I'd heard lots of discussion among students and professors about the implications of the new system as related to privacy and surveillance, but I'd not heard anyone else mention the socio-emotional impact of not seeing grad student parking hang tags. I wonder if anyone else has had similar experiences. I find this a particularly provocative example of the development of sociotechnical systems. often times, designers are encouraged to consider the impact their designs may have, beyond just the technical, before deploying them. certainly, one could have hypothesized about or considered surveillance-oriented impacts, but the impact of the absence of visible hang tags would have been, I suspect, harder to anticipate and even harder to address. I wonder if there are better ways of predicting, and accounting for, such effects, short of actually deploying the system.

techno-values

I recently came across a quote from Ursula Franklin (via Kevin from Question Technology) about a donation of computers for an educational institution. to her colleague who had just negotiated the donation, she asks, "Think about the analogy between your computer gift and the gift of free Bibles" (the link above has a more extended quote). bibles were once used to teach people to read, but obviously more was learned than just how to read. Franklin calls for greater, more reflective awareness of, and explicit dealing with, "the social assumptions that are embedded in every design." Kevin connects this to the $100 laptop project, and an important connection it is. I however, am left thinking of other connections.

Ong's Orality and Literacy examines the cognitive, social, and cultural impacts of the technology of writing. oral cultures have certain aspects to their communication: anything that needs to be remembered must be said in a memorable way, otherwise it will be forgotten due to the ephemeral nature of speech; speech is heard and sometimes felt, internalizing it, while written words are seen, making them external and objective; speech requires narratives to be of a very formulaic character, so as to be memorable by the bard and comprehensible by the audience, while writing allows for more complex narrative structure because the reader can refer to what was said in the last paragraph. these are just a few of the interesting implications of the adoption of the technology of writing. Ong goes on to discuss the "second orality," communication media that resemble speech but also have characteristics of writing. while he had in mind media like TV and radio, much of what he said applies to email, IM, txt, etc. what unintended results will come from use of digital media?

I'm also reading Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, so I can't help but make a connection there, as well. Weber's thesis is that the protestant ethic (a moral calling to hard labor, the accumulation of wealth for its own sake, that an individual "exists for the sake of his business, instead of the reverse") results largely from the doctrines of several protestant sects, particularly Calvinism. I'm only part way through, so I can't yet sum up his whole argument, but this is another interesting example of unintended outcomes. Weber goes so far as to say that the worldly spirit of capitalism is in some cases in opposition to the beliefs of those from whose teachings that spirit derives.

in these cases, it's possible to conjecture about potential consequences and implicit values, but one cannot always make entirely accurate predictions or account for every possibility. I don't think this means that we should throw up our hands and abandon hope of responsible use of technology. however, it does leave me somewhat unsatisfied. must we just be reflective about the values we are incorporating into our designs? while awareness about factors such as gender bias are certainly important, I doubt that introspection is not enough. can we be explicit about the values in our designs? I'm not sure that explication will help, either. how does one say to the average consumer something like "this device incorporates the semiotic notion that a sign can stand in for the thing being signified" without having their eyes glaze over?

what's a socially conscious (technology) designer to do? I suspect that part of the answer is certainly a raised awareness on the part of designers. however, I think an important, but often overlooked, factor is raising awareness on the part of the consumer/user/prosumer(/wrangler ::shudder::). I would love to see technology that not only causes the user to consider the values explicitly or implicitly incorporated into the device, but furthermore causes that same user to consider the technology itself, to question it, to ask, what does this technology do? what does this technology do to me? how do I use the technology? how am I intended to use the technology? how do I actually use the technology? what does this tell me about the designer? what does this tell me about the marketing/manufacturing of this technology? what does this tell me about me? obviously, in order to make such technology requires socially responsible designers. however, technology has far more capacity for impact in the hands of socially aware, critically reflective users of the technology. the very use of a technology should cause the user to question her or his use of that technology. I want to see technology like that. I want to make technology like that.

the logical art of technology

yes, that's right, time for another etymological interlude.

over the summer (yes, my backlog of things to blog really is that long), I started wondering, what are the etymological roots of the word "technology?" well, with a little help from dictionary.com's entry on technology, I discovered the following.

from the Greek technología systematic treatment. see techno-, -logy

looking at the entries for techno- and -logy reveal something quite interesting.

techno- is from téchné, for art or skill. it's also used particularly to form compound words meaning "technique" or "technology." -logy, from the Latin -logie, which is in turn from the Greek -logia, refers us to -logue. this stem comes also from Latin, -logus, then Greek, -logos, and makes another reference to logos, the word from this stem derives. the word logos in English refers to rational principles in philosophy. the Greek logos refers to a word, saying, speech, discourse, thought, etc. (the interested reader can also refer to similarities between logos and lection).

to what does this amount? well, techno- is used to refer to a technique, meaning an art or skill. logos is used to refer to logic, particularly that sort of rational logical reasoning in Western philosophy. as I technologist, I find this somewhat inspiring, that technology can be seen, in a way, as a meeting of art and logic. not that it is logical art, not that it is artistic logic, but that it is its own hybrid of the two. however, I also find it in a way illuminating with respect to many of the challenges faced in technology development. by its very nature, technology, especially computational technology, requires codification, explication, and quantification. however, the téchné of the things for which we use computational technologies--social interaction, cultural artifacts, knowledge and meaning construction--by their very nature resist codification, explication, and especially quantification.

I don't think all of this is necessarily implied by the word "technology" itself. the point here is instead to demonstrate how the etymology of the word can be used as an elicitor of (potentially useful) reflection.

someone with a clue

I just read a great piece about the horrible VA Tech shootings (via Liz Losh). the author, Siva Vaidhyanathan makes some great points.

As a culture, we are very bad at thinking about technology. We look to it either as something to fear or as a panacea for the flaws of the human condition. Technology is neither. It is merely an extension of our own wills and capabilities.

this is great, especially since I'll be presenting a paper in a couple weeks entitled "Questioning the Technological Panacea" that critiques a rhetorical trend to portray technology for the solution to any sort of problem, be it social, economical, educational, whatever. I'm not arguing against technological solutions, but rather that we might be better served by a pause for consideration before blugdeoning every problem we see with the technology hammer. not only as a culture are we bad at thinking about technology, but perhaps even the technology designers are rather bad at it in their own way.

it goes on

After 9/11 we wasted billions on biometric and data-mining technologies to protect ourselves from rare and limited dangers like hijackings, anthrax epidemics and chemical weapon attacks. Yet we defunded efforts to attack real killers like cancer and real lifesavers like public transportation.

beautiful. I don't know if the point could be made better.

go read the rest of the piece, it's all good stuff.