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Choice and Control in the Electronic Jungle or How to be at peace in the Information Age

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Title: Choice and Control in the Electronic Jungle or How to be at peace in the Information Age


1
Choice and Control in the Electronic Jungleor
How to be at peace in the Information Age
  • Bryan Duggan
  • School of Computing
  • DIT
  • Kevin St
  • http//www.comp.dit.ie/bduggan
  • bryan.duggan_at_comp.dit.ie

2
Overview
  • What is technology?
  • Loss of control
  • Evaluating technology
  • Reductionism/Mechanistic view
  • Goals of technology
  • Effects of technology
  • Technology Evaluation Framework

3
There is more to life than computers
4
Based on
  • Taming the Beast Choice Control in the
    Electronic Jungle
  • Jason Ohler
  • Agency for Instructional Technology (December 1,
    1999)
  • ISBN 0784208735

5
What is technology?
  • Anything people create, anything else is nature
  • Level 1
  • Technology as apparatus
  • Level 2
  • Technical activities
  • Level 3
  • An ecosystem (or tecosystem)
  • Technology has got out of hand

6
What is technology?
  • A metaphor
  • Saying one thing and meaning another
  • Seeing a car
  • as a metaphor for mobility
  • A hammer
  • as a metaphor for building
  • Imagination outpaces technology

7
  • Technology is how we try to speak to ourselves
    in tongues of aspiration, through images of our
    becoming saying mobility in terms of car,
    community in terms of television,
    individualisation in terms of cubist office
    environments
  • Technology is how imagine out loud

8
  • Technology replaces life threatening problems
    with slower acting and more persistent problems
  • Antibiotics
  • Office equipment

9
Aspects of technology that lead to a loss of
control
  • Amplification
  • Pulling a trigger, making a phone call
  • The power of the Gods, without the wisdom
  • Ubiquity
  • Pervasive, interconnected
  • Stealth
  • The ability of technology to create lies

10
Aspects of technology that lead to a loss of
control
  • Ephererality
  • Attachment to change?
  • Sovereignty
  • Who controls who, ideas with clothes on, social
    forces
  • Dehumanisation
  • Victims of technology

11
How do we regain control?
  • We gain stage 4 literacy, seeing and evaluating
  • Stage 1
  • To see
  • Stage 2
  • To absorb
  • Stage 3
  • To forget
  • Stage 4
  • Seeing and evaluating

12
Example
13
STA
  • Science and Technology Administration
  • Purpose to evaluate all new technologies before
    they are introduced

14
Reductionism vs holism
  • Bacteria?
  • Humans?
  • Individual vs. environment?

15
3 Aspects
  • The Technology itself
  • Unique properties and characteristics
  • The goals of the technology
  • How technology is imbued with purpose and
    manipulated towards a particular end
  • The effects of the technology
  • Holistic Ourselves, our environment, society

16
The Technology Itself (how? and what?)
  • What is it?
  • What subsystems are present?
  • Is there writing anywhere? If so, what does it
    say?
  • Is there pictures anywhere? If so what do they
    tell us?
  • Who uses it?
  • What does it do?
  • How is it powered?
  • Is it an information producing machine or a work
    producing machine?
  • What is it made of?
  • How does it work?
  • What is its capacity?
  • How does it extend peoples senses and
    capabilities?

17
  • How does it limit peoples capabilities?
  • What is its range?
  • Is it temporary or permanent?
  • Can we get rid of it if we need to?
  • How dependable is the technology?

18
The Goals of the Technology (why?)
  • What are the inherent biases of the technology?
  • Who is selling the technology and why?
  • Is there a bigger picture to the sale?
  • What is being commoditised? How is it being sold?
  • Is the need real or created?
  • Before it was invented, did we need it?
  • How well did we function without it?

19
  • with each new invention it becomes possible to
    awaken and satisfy an appetite latent in the
    human constitution
  • The human being is by nature a creature of
    infinite appetite

20
Bias
  • Burns petrol
  • This encourages us to go to war in Iraq
  • Goes more than 60 MPH
  • encourages us to seek employment away from home
    and hence leads to the growth of suburbs
  • Solar power, nuclear power

21
The Effects of the Technology
  • How does it affect the physical environment?
  • Consider the entire lifecycle
  • How does the technology affect the human body?
  • Long term, short term, benefits and risks

22
The Effects of technology
  • How does the technology affect social
    relationships?
  • Does it make us more or less involved with the
    people around us?
  • Group activities? Family relationships
  • How does it affect work?

23
  • How does it affect self-relationship?
  • Does it empower or take away power?
  • Does it alter our expectations of self?
  • More free time?
  • Does it make us more or less expressive?
  • More in touch with ourselves?
  • Does it make you feel cool?

24
  • The power structure
  • Who stands to gain?
  • Lack of Phonebooks in communist Russia
  • How does the technology affect education?
  • Do people need to be trained?
  • Does the technology facilitate self training?
  • Technologies of the future?

25
The Universe
The World
Society
Organisation
User
Technology
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