Smartphones or dumb nodes
It has been a very revealing week of discussion on mobile phones, and while I understand the reasons not to limit to the discussion to the latest technology, the smartphone (or if numerous wireless providers are taken seriously,the superphone), there is still one distinction I would like to explore in this post. A smartphone is a mobile device that does it all, has unlimited access to the Internet – if you happen to be in a favourable location – and expensive data plans aside, the entire world-wide web now fits in a pocket. People with smartphones should therefore be, you know, smarter than the average cell phone user, and lightyears ahead of those who can still remember owning a rotary phone. Yet an argument has been raised that this smartening up of consumers still hasn’t happened, and while the smartphones are designed to do more things, less is actually done with them.
At the start of this course, I was working through what seemed like an applicable book for this course: Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age: The Spirit of Networks (Fisher, 2010). While there is much to learn about Dr. Eran Fisher’s analysis of networks and their influence on capitalism, he often mentions “dumb nodes” as a key feature for effective networks. Like individual neurons performing limited tasks in our brains, Fisher argues that in the New Capitalist system, people work better with a small set of tasks, and it is the network that make the system smart, and hopefully the designers rich. With smartphones, people have the potential to do many great things, but instead focus on several tasks, learning in bits rather than a complete knowledge of everything. Reminds me of Huxley’s description of Alpha-run Cyprus in Brave New World: not everyone who owns a smartphone can be a World Controller.
Fisher, E. (2010). Media and new capitalism in the digital age: The spirit of networks. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Posted in: Week 11: Mobiles
murray12 2:56 am on November 20, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hello kstooshnov,
I certainly feel that I can relate to your post. I have the world in my pocket, but I rarely visit it.
I have been a Smart(Super)phone owner for a few years now. Over that time people have asked me whether it is worth it to upgrade their ‘regular’ phone. I usually say that I could definitely live without all the bells and whistles, but there’s just something comforting about knowing that at anytime you access the info you need or communicate with anyone in many different ways. But, I’ll admit that I rarely do any of these things. There will be times when I download the latest useful apps which I never end up using. Or, I could sit while I commute to write that email I have been meaning to send, but I usually just wait until I can sit at my laptop.
I feel I have the tools and potential, but not the incentive. I wonder what you think it would take for people like myself to get a more complete knowledge of everything out of their Smartphones?
David William Price 10:45 am on November 20, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Excellent comments.
The issue I’ve been raising this week is our use of tech reflects the underlying habits we have. To the extent we are sedentary or spend time in locations with more convenient access types (laptops), we don’t bother with our mobiles.
To truly explore the potential, we have to work from the affordances of mobile outward and ask ourselves how those affordances match needs in our daily lives.
For many, phones are simple conveniences. For some, they represent the only viable option to conduct an activity: in developing nations, a dumb phone is their link to English lessons; in rich nations, a basic smartphone is their link to just-in-time refreshers and performance supports while in a taxi or before they walk into a client meeting. Christian Abilene University provided students in one class with a meeting facilitation performance support for their mobiles… and then sent the students out into the community to facilitate community meetings and capture data to bring back to share with the class.
We live in wealthy nations with an embarrassing array of choice. That choice means many of us buy tools we don’t really need. A way to turn this on its head, however, is to ask us how our choice can change the entire way we live and learn. If we can spend a majority of our time out in the real world collecting data and interacting with people face to face and finding out way through new places… that is a real choice for us.
David Vogt 11:05 am on November 20, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
A provocative thought, Kyle –
From my perspective, the ‘dumb node syndrome’ has increasingly impacted most technologies for more than a generation. There used to be rampant jokes about the tiny percentage of the full functionality of the home VCR (now PVR, etc) that the average person ever understood or used. Now that everything from cars to toasters are essentially networked computing devices, we’re rapidly loosing the (once comfortable) perspective that the conceptual models we build for the objects in our lives have any bearing on how they actually work, or what they can do. I’m reminded of the line in Ghostbusters where Bill Murray dryly states, “Generally you don’t see that kind of behavior in a major appliance” – we’re now living in a world where our major appliances are routinely possessed of paranormal behaviors.
Part of the reason why desktop computers (as an example) don’t seem so overwhelmingly ‘smart’ to us compared to our smart phones is that their cornucopia of affordances are better hidden. The range of needs I might have while sitting at a desk are also infinitesimally small compared to my complex existence in the real world. Interface design and user experience design for mobiles is still in its infancy, and therefore most devices are incredibly frustrating to use to anywhere near their full potential, even for the functions that really matter to us. People inevitably derive simpler usage patterns.
I’m also reminded of Sir Arthur Clarke’s third law that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. One of the reasons I’m so committed to innovation in this space is that I see mobiles in the context of magic wands in a society that doesn’t yet have a Hogwarts to teach us how to use them…
khenry 9:07 pm on November 20, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Needs do influence functionality and I agree with David V and David W-P that needs are lessened/increased based on where we are and what we are doing? Unlike Kyle I have become very intuned with my smartphone in many ways because I am constantly on the go and need smartphone activities to help fill the gap between sit down time in front of a PC. It was actually the reason I got a smartphone. However, in trying to navigate and manage LMS and CMS I have found that my increased needs have left me demanding more from my mobile particularly easier user interface, presentation of sites et al., typing and responding capabilities. I even downloaded a new browser for improved navigation and presentation of LMS and CMS, suggested by my blackberry help line.
Increased needs will significantly affect device design. I wonder if this thought went into the accompaniment of the Blackberry Playbook to its mobile phones. I believe also that Kyle is right in that content organisation and presentation into smaller bite size chunks will also be significant considerations
Kerry-Ann