{"id":184123,"date":"2013-11-08T14:23:50","date_gmt":"2013-11-08T14:23:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.rm.gfolkdev.net\/?p=184123"},"modified":"2022-10-04T14:43:18","modified_gmt":"2022-10-04T14:43:18","slug":"quickpanel-digital-cocooning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rosenfeldmedia.com\/quickpanel-digital-cocooning\/","title":{"rendered":"QuickPanel: Digital Cocooning"},"content":{"rendered":"

With our eyes on our screens more and more, what\u2019s happening to our public spaces? \u00a0Are they less congenial, less bustling, less safe? \u00a0A number of recent books, such as The Circle<\/a> by Dave Eggers and Ambient Commons<\/a> by Malcolm McCullough, cast a critical eye at an always-online society. \u00a0And in a tragic turn, a San Francisco State University student was killed<\/a> in September while leaving a crowded train; passengers, engrossed in their devices, hadn\u2019t noticed a man on the train waving a gun around. \u00a0We asked a panel of UX experts to weigh in on the ramifications of digital cocooning. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

With smartphones, we walk around with the capacity to be talking to, texting, or tweeting each other all the time. \u00a0Yet we\u2019re missing out on what\u2019s happening right in front of us. \u00a0Why does social media make us, in some sense, antisocial?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"christina-wodtke\"<\/a>Christina Wodtke:<\/strong> Everyone is talking about our need to be connected all the time, but no one (as far as I’ve seen) is talking about our increasing cocooning of ourselves from each other. The police procedural constantly provides us examples of bad things that can happen to us, with shows like “CSI” illustrating that apparently safe people can become our kidnappers and killers. But to be continually hyper-alert is exhausting. So instead we put up digital \u201cdo not disturb\u201d signs so we don\u2019t have to deal with strangers, which makes us more vulnerable to significant harm.<\/p>\n

They also shield us from the petty guilt of not helping our fellow humans who are less fortunate, such as the homeless, the beggars, and old folks in need of a seat. In San Francisco, where a recent shooting occurred, one is continually asked for money. Even the kindest of us can\u2019t give to everyone who asks, so it becomes easier to hide.<\/p>\n

‘Down time’ used to mean a chance to relax and look around. Now it\u2019s considered ‘dead time’ that needs to be filled.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\"randy-farmer\"<\/a>Randy Farmer:<\/strong>\u00a0Attention is a scarce resource, and it can be dangerous to focus inwardly all the time. \u00a0I first noticed this before smartphones. \u00a0Airports used to be social\/public spaces (and I liked to spend time interacting with people there) before cell phone and Bluetooth headsets.\u00a0 Now, time spent at airports is seen as \u201cdown time\u201d that could be more efficiently used for business\/personal relationships (texting), so these public, \u201cthird\u201d places are quickly losing their efficacy as a way to interact with the greater community.\u00a0 And it’s only getting worse.\u00a0 The FAA is allowing more use of electronics on flights, and all the parks in NYC have Wi-Fi.<\/p>\n

\u201cDown time\u201d used to mean a chance to relax and look around. Now it\u2019s considered \u201cdead time\u201d that needs to be filled. \u00a0Heads up has become heads down. Sad.<\/p>\n

\"brenda-laurel\"<\/a>Brenda Laurel: \u00a0<\/strong>At the memorial of the 50th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, we saw King\u2019s great speech at the Lincoln Memorial over and over again. I was haunted by a picture of what that moment would have looked like today. Everybody would be taking pictures or texting with their phones. Dr. King might himself have felt isolated. To paraphrase Cassius in\u00a0Julius Caesar<\/em>, the fault is not with our cellphones but with ourselves. This is a failure of civility\u2014of plain old manners\u2014as well as a failure of mindfulness. As interaction designers (paradoxically), I think we can make some interventions in this space.<\/p>\n

What are some design approaches that could mitigate the effects of digital cocooning?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The iPhone already has a ‘do not disturb’ setting; maybe it\u2019s time for a ‘please disturb’ setting.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Christina Wodtke:<\/strong> Design could help this problem in a myriad of ways, from having a \u201cpublic place\u201d setting that allowed only audio or only visual. When I run or bike, I only listen to porous audio like podcasts so I am alert enough to react to danger. Once we shut off our ears and eyes, we are utterly defenseless. The iPhone already has a “do not disturb” setting; maybe it\u2019s time for a “please disturb” setting.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Maybe more technology needs a “please disturb” setting.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Design could also help in a much more significant way by reminding us of the humanity of our fellow passengers and making sure places like trains and subway read as safe so people would not feel such a strong urge to psychically hide. Ride a Skytrain in Bangkok. Bangkok has the same degree of homelessness and crime, same varied socioeconomic status of riders, yet the Skytrain feels safe and a only handful of folks hide in electronics. The trains are well designed, well maintained and comfortable, with many signs reminding you to give seats to children, pregnant ladies, older folks, and monks. As well, there is always a TV on, and while in Bangkok only shows commercials, I can imagine a world in which news or sports are shown as well, encouraging people to be eyes up. When places feel safe, we can relax and people-watch, and this makes those places even safer. \u00a0Jane Jacobs, in her amazing treatise\u00a0The Death and Life of Great American Cities<\/em>, points out that what makes a place safe is \u201ceyes on the street.\u201d \u00a0Our public transit needs eyes on each other to keep each other safe.<\/p>\n

Randy Farmer:<\/strong> \u00a0Though technology has been developed to prod us into changing new potentially harmful behaviors (such as smartphones auto-disabling texting while moving in a vehicle), it\u2019s no replacement for changing our culture.<\/p>\n

We need to consider designing our environments to remind and teach us how to interact and consciously seek \u201cdown time.\u201d Some businesses have taken on the role of etiquette guardians:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Brenda Laurel:\u00a0 <\/strong>Both Christina and Randy make good points. I imagine \u201cpublic interactives\u201d that might allow us to see together our own public environments and gatherings in different ways. Mindfulness meditation apps already exist (for example, Smiling Mind and Take a Deep Breath). Beyond this, design applications or environment remind us to breathe and be present.<\/p>\n

Do you engage with strangers when you\u2019re in a \u201cthird space\u201d\u2014<\/strong>standing in line at the post office, waiting out an airplane delay?\u00a0 Or, in those cases, are you grateful to have an electronic device at hand? \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christina Wodtke:<\/strong>\u00a0 Most of the time, my biggest fear is being put into that situation. I\u2019m intensely introverted. On a recent flight back from Prague, the entertainment system was not working. When the food heating system also broke, my neighbors and I started talking.\u00a0 We ended up connecting, but it took a shared misery. As well, it helped that I was playing a game on my iPad. The iPad is a big surface, easy to peek at, and games are inherently social. If I had been watching a movie, especially if I\u2019d had headphones on, my seatmate wouldn’t have used the game as a social object to start a conversation. He was really interested in watching me play Frontier Rush, asked about how to play, and started to suggest moves I should make. (He was a man in his 70s whose wife was trying to talk him into an iPad. I made the sale that night.) I wonder if the post office or the airlines could create similar play spaces where it would feel safe to connect.<\/p>\n

Our tools are teaching us a new kind of social helplessness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Randy Farmer:\u00a0 <\/strong>Recently I was in a fast-food restaurant and an older woman came in, looking lost and asking for driving directions. The twenty-year-old at the register was at a loss for helping her, even though I am certain he was carrying a smartphone. I was waiting for my order, so he asked me to help her. \u00a0I quickly loaded my maps app and told her the step-by-step directions (which she wrote with pencil on her physical map). \u00a0The cashier was grateful and a bit embarrassed that he didn\u2019t know the directions (how would he, growing up without paper maps?) and that he didn\u2019t even know how to handle the social encounter well enough to figure out that he had the solution in his pocket.<\/p>\n

Our tools are teaching us a new kind of social helplessness, and also providing us an easy means for escape when we can\u2019t cope with the fact we\u2019re directly interacting less and less. This is a vicious spiral.<\/p>\n

Social rules design has helped in the past and can help us today.\u00a0 Our technologies can, and must, take a role in this, but we must start with the goal in mind.\u00a0 We\u2019ve started using tech for physical exercise, something that was also declining, and we can do the same for social health. One might imagine a Fitbit for socialization.\u00a0 Or you could just get a t-shirt:<\/p>\n

Sometimes excellent interaction design isn\u2019t technological.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Brenda Laurel:\u00a0 <\/strong>Randy, I want one of those. I do see many folks staring at their phones when waiting in line and the like. I love observing and talking to people in those situations, so I rarely bury my head. On the other hand, if the wait is two hours or something, I\u2019ll certainly end up grabbing my iPhone. I agree with Randy that this is really about socialization. I don\u2019t think we can design social \u201crules\u201d (although we might model more civil and sociable societies in things like multiplayer games).<\/p>\n

One of the best social times I\u2019ve had lately was at the LGBT luncheon at the Grace Hopper Conference. It seemed like the usual conference lunch scene\u2014sitting next to people you didn\u2019t know, some of whom knew one another. But the \u201cemcee\u201d suggested topics for discussion and eventually we got into making comments to one another publicly on a variety of subjects. I felt the community draw closer, and I had special buddies throughout the conference because of that experience. At Grace Hopper I also learned about \u201clean in\u201d circles as a way to enhance our engagement in discourse as well as community.<\/p>\n

Sometimes excellent interaction design isn\u2019t technological.<\/p>\n

Like what our experts had to say? Guess what: you can have them bring their brains to you.\u00a0Randy Farmer, Brenda Laurel, and Christina Wodtke are available for consulting<\/a> and training<\/a> through Rosenfeld Media.<\/em><\/p>\n

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With our eyes on our screens more and more, what\u2019s happening to our public spaces? \u00a0Are they less congenial, less bustling, less safe? \u00a0A number of recent books, such as The Circle by Dave Eggers and Ambient Commons by Malcolm McCullough, cast a critical eye at an always-online society. \u00a0And in a tragic turn, a … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosenfeldmedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosenfeldmedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosenfeldmedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosenfeldmedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosenfeldmedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184123"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rosenfeldmedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186448,"href":"https:\/\/rosenfeldmedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184123\/revisions\/186448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosenfeldmedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosenfeldmedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosenfeldmedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}