designswarm thoughts

This article prompted some thoughts about this society’s obsession with documenting everything. The article starts rather nicely with

“When I was a boy—I can remember how my Mother would spend a good part of her Sundays. She would take out her phonebook—a tattered collection of names and numbers written in handwriting you could barely read, and re-connect with her personal network—an intimate collection a family and friends. She didn’t create media other than the pictures she took or the video my father shot on his 8mm video camera. ”

Somehow this sounds way more soothing and relaxing than what we’re living now. With these “lifestreams” we’re creating, these social networks, having friends see every corner of our conscious and subconscious existence, pictures, statuses, pokes, twitters, games, applications, we’re also creating an unprecedented set of expectations. “I should post more often on Flickr before I drop off the map” was something I heard recently. These things are starting to sound like work.

Being dedicated at doing something used to be for workaholics. In the meantime we’ve all turned into sociaholics. Progress in society meant we would one day have more time to ourselves:the illiusion of the Homo ludens. But as the NYTimes was quick to point out, we are enjoying less and less free time. So we’ve turned fun into work and are desperate to have fun at work.

There used to be a trend in interaction design of thinking aboutslow technology and creating relaxing experiences for people to have, like slow food, slow travel. But technology by definition has never been slow. Interacting with technology isn’t a slow activity. It’s about being efficient, getting things done, so that you can… hmm… post pictures up on Flickr.

So I have to wonder,will we collectively keep going or will the height of this bubble be a collective “stop”, a global yearning for a technology-lighter existence. Will this be the push towards AI where we literally have nothing to do, no button to push, tranquil in the knowledge that everything is already being captured, edited, published, without us having to lift a finger. Will we actually ever live a moment without having to absolutely, irrevocably, reach down in our pocket for our phone camera and push that button?

Or maybe we were never meant to be totally ludens in the first place.

I’m a terrible geek. I don’t buy my own stuff. My ibook came with my grad program. My camera is a loan from Matt who also gave me my iShuffle as a gift (which I have forgotten in the washer twice so far). My phone is a gift from my best friend who bought it in the UK back in 2001.

So when the iPhone will come out and millions will start carrying them around and showing off, chances are, i’m not going to get one. However, i’m ready for this conversation already:

Someone, somewhere in 2010 – Wow, you don’t have an iPhone!
Me – Nah, it’s too heavy.

One thing that I think has been grossly overlooked about the iphone is that on top of imposing lots of the usual Apple kingdom restrictions like DRM and a specific provider, it only offered a 2 mega pixel camera. Anything sound weird in that?

All of the top notch handset providers have been recently competing on how high res their cameras are. I’m assuming because they correctly assumed that their users were more often taking great pictures, sending them to each other on the go, at concerts, etc.

We have come to embrace amateur photography and are offered great tools that we can operate easily and get great quality pictures from. So why this lame camera on the phone thats supposed to redefine the way the cell phone industry functions? Does this indeed show a user-centered design? Is it a coincidence that Steve, in his keynote talks over and over again about “those great digital cameras”… hellooooooo noone is interested in carrying one around anymore! This is why that particular convergence has been so successful in terms of usage.

Don’t get me wrong, i like the iphone, i think it looks cool, and never having owned an ipod and having one of the oldest phones around i can say this is an appealing product… but i think the question still poses itself, would i rather be able to take great pictures on the go or listen to Alanis Morissette ?