logic

Technologies are, by nature, biased. They are biased by the humans who create them. They are biased by the cultures in which they are produced. They are biased by the perceived needs of intended consumers and they are biased by agentic practices of consumption. A recent TEDMED talk (Why Hospital Rooms Don’t Work) by architect Michael Graves highlights the biased nature of technologies. Specifically, he demonstrates the embeddedness of privilege.

Michael Graves is a renowned architect. In 2003, Graves developed a rare (and still mysterious) illness that left him paralyzed. While fighting the illness and then undergoing rehabilitation, Graves spent a significant amount of time in hospitals. He found the facilities not only to be aesthetically displeasing, but impractical and sometimes downright inaccessible for a person with mobility impairments. He describes unreachable light switches and faucet handles, rooms so small that maneuverability is impossible, really ugly floral patterns, and an overall requirement that he, as a person in a wheelchair, ask for help with tasks that he should be able to complete independently. Summarizing these shortcomings he says: more...

I should really post a review of this coffee shop. Maybe on Yelp. I could snap a photo of the cool little setup I have going here or tweet about the funny laptop rules at this place. Or I can get meta and type a Facebook update about how I am currently blogging about all of these possibilities to document my experience. While contemplating all of this, Spotify, a music-listening service, published the song I just listened to on Facebook.

Let’s reflect briefly on how we document experience. The first examples I just gave might be called “active sharing” whereas that last example, the Spotify one, highlights how self-documentation is also increasingly passive. And I think this furthers what I call “documentary vision”: the habit of experiencing more and more of life with the awareness of its document-potential.

Much has been made of so-called “frictionless sharing,” the new Facebook feature that automatically publishes updates from partnered sites and services. Sync Facebook with Spotify or the Wall Street Journal and what you listen to or read will be passively published on the new Facebook live-ticker.

This more passive sharing furthers an already established trend: we are increasingly living life under the logic of the Facebook mechanism. more...