» Media Desert of My Real Life

{July 16, 2008} Adventures in Time or Why I’m Freaked Out by FaceBook

Because so many of my friends are completely addicted to FaceBook (and threatening not to be friends with me anymore), I decided to join two days ago (less than 36 hours ago). In keeping with the entire Web 2.0 movement, I feel that I should share my impressions of FaceBook immediately, before I’ve had too much time to reflect on the experience.

The first strange experience I had on FaceBook involved the status update feature. This is a feature that allows the user to tell her friends what she’s currently doing. One of the options was “Cathie is sleeping” and so when I went to bed, I changed my status to that. Yesterday morning, I logged in for further exploration and Liz was online (and of course, by “online”, I mean “on FaceBook”). I had forgotten to change my status when I logged in and so the first thing Liz said to me was “You aren’t sleeping.” She was right, of course. I was freaked out by the fact that my un-updated status was immediately noticed and commented upon. So I changed my status to “Cathie is freaked out by the status update feature.” This was immediately commented on by the two Robins, both of whom said something like: “It’s how we track your every movement.” Which, of course, freaked me out even more.

The second strange experience is one that Ian Bogost calls “collapsed time.” After I filled out my profile on FaceBook (entering things like where I went to high school, college and so on), the first person the site suggested that I add as a FaceBook friend is someone who actually is a friend of mine, Amy Briggs. I’ve known Amy since I was in seventh grade and she was in sixth. We went to high school together and then went to Dartmouth College together, where we were two of the very few women majoring in Computer Science in the mid-1980s. We both went on to get PhDs in Computer Science and we’re now both faculty members at small New England colleges (although she has gone over to the dark side and is Middlebury’s Acting Dean of Curriculum). Because of the similarities in our backgrounds, it was probably a no-brainer to suggest that I add her as a friend. And, of course, I did. To complete the friendship relationship in FaceBook, however, the second party must agree to the friendship. So I went to bed Monday night without Amy in my FaceBook friend list. By the time I logged into FB Tuesday morning, however, Amy had accepted my request for friendship. What’s strange to me is how FB reported this to me. It said, “Cathie and Amy Briggs are now friends.” Now we’re friends? Despite the fact that we’ve known each other for more than 30 years, now we’re friends? As Bogost has pointed out, FB collapses time to this moment. Now is the only time that matters. This freaks me out just a little bit.

The third strange experience happened this morning. I have been on FB for just more than 36 hours so I have only dabbled in exploring the many features available. For example, I have uploaded only one picture, mostly just to see how the upload feature works. It’s a picture of Ann and I taken at a baby shower this winter. (Despite the fact that I have just joined FB, quite a few other pictures of me are there because of the addicted friends I mentioned earlier. It’s another interesting and freaky aspect of these social networks that you can “exist” on the network without even knowing it.) A friend teased me via a comment on my wall (a public space on which FB members can post comments for and about you), implying that I need to get more photos out there. Although I know the comment was meant in jest, I think it illustrates an issue concerning “immediacy,” in which users expect stuff to happen immediately. The immediacy issue is related to the issue of collapsed time in that they are both about an emphasis on now. And on FB, stuff does happen immediately. And then all your friends are immediately notified about it. Freaky.

And that leads me to the last of my current impressions about FB. I’m having significant information overload. As a user, you can control the kinds of things you are notified about via email. By default, you are notified about everything. So when someone accepts your offer of friendship, you get an email about it. When a friend changes her status, you get an email about it. When a friend writes on your wall, you get an email about it. When a friend adds a photo to her page, you get an email about it. And so on. Like I said, you can change these settings but as a new user, it’s difficult to decide what you want to get an email about and what you don’t. I’m finding it challenging to keep up with it all. This brings to mind Sturgeon’s Law, which says: “Ninety-nine percent of everything is crap.” Since I’m writing these impressions without having thought them through, that’s also what I’m thinking about this blog entry.

{July 8, 2008} Reading 2.0

On our trip to Barcelona, I brought several novels as well as a couple of non-fiction books related to my work life with me. I can’t stand being on a plane without something to read but I also wanted to minimize the weight in my carry-on luggage. So I put all but two of the books in my checked bags and took one work of fiction and one of non-fiction in my carry-on. I started reading the work of fiction in the Manchester airport.

It was a great book–a graphic novel called Strangers in Paradise. I’ve been reading graphic works since I read and loved Alison Bechdel’s memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. I’ve enjoyed some of the graphic novels that I’ve read but mostly I am not part of the intended audience for those works and so they don’t particularly speak to me. Strangers in Paradise took some getting used to but the over-the-topness of the main character settled down as the work progressed and the back story was filled in. I ended up really liking it and the great thing about that is I’ve only read the first of six paperbacks in the series. So I have some future reading to look forward to. The bad thing about liking the graphic novel is that I finished it before we left the United States. So I was looking at an 8 hour plane ride with only work-related stuff to read (and who was I kidding–I was going on vacation!) or I would have to purchase a new book (when I had perfectly good books available in my checked bags). I chose to purchase a new book (Boomsday by Christopher Buckley–great satire) at an airport bookstore. So I ended up carrying more books than I had planned in my carry-on luggage as we crossed the Atlantic.

I think my decision to sacrifice breadth of reading materials for the sake of the weight I was carrying was a good one but in retrospect, I should have chosen two works of fiction to carry with me. And it’s not all bad in that I read Boomsday when I probably wouldn’t have otherwise. But it’s a shame that I had to make that decision in the first place. This is a situation for which I can completely understand the appeal of the Amazon Kindle reading device.

The Kindle weighs only a little over 10 ounces but can hold 200 titles to be read on electronic paper that is apparently fairly easy on the eyes. The device uses wireless cell phone technology so that downloading books, newspapers and magazines can be done nearly anywhere in the United States without having to find a wireless hotspot. I haven’t seen one or tried to read a book on one but that day in the airport, I certainly would have been happy to have access to additional fiction titles without having to carry additional weight. The reviews of the Kindle are mostly good (the big complaint seems to be that the page turning buttons are easy to hit by accident) but the one big drawback that I see to the device is the price. Amazon sells them for $359.

If that price meant that you could purchase books for significantly less than the cost of physical books, I might be able to justify spending $359 for a reading device. Since there is no need for printing, binding, shipping and so on, it would seem that the Kindle editions should be sold much more cheaply than the physical editions. But this is generally not the case. For example, the list price for the hardcover of David Sedaris’ new book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, is $25.99. Amazon is selling the hardcover for $14.29 (plus shipping and handling unless you get Free Super Saver Shipping on orders of over $25). The Kindle edition is $9.99. For non-trade books, the difference in price is typically even less. For example, Gary Genosco’s McLuhan and Baudrillard is $30.90 for the paperback and $27.81 for the Kindle edition. These price differences are fairly representative of what we find between the least expensive edition of the physical book and the Kindle edition. It would take a lot of book purchases to make back your $359. But perhaps the convenience combined with the ability to put not just books but also magazines and newspapers on it will convince some people to buy the Kindle.

I’m intrigued by the idea of being able to conveniently carry an entire (digital) library around with me in the same way that I’m intrigued by the idea of being able to carry lots of (digital) music around with me. It certainly would make trips to Europe easier to deal with.

{June 16, 2008} Unplugged Vacation

We’re leaving for Spain tomorrow. For the first time since 2000, we are not bringing a computer on vacation with us and so we will be completely unplugged. I’m looking forward to it although I dread the fact that I will have to deal with all that email at once when we get back.

Apparently, whether or not to unplug while on vacation is a serious question that people write about, especially when contemplating going on such a vacation or when having just returned from one. It actually was an easy decision for us–we didn’t want to have to carry a laptop. We’re traveling lean and mean.

{June 14, 2008} The Real No Longer Exists

We went to Alpine Adventures in Lincoln, NH yesterday with a group of friends to ride the ziplines that they have set up in the woods on Barron Mountain. We had a great time. Traveling through the woods at speeds of about 25-30mph suspended by a harness from a steel cable is an awesome way to spend an early summer afternoon.

So what does ziplining have to do with technology and society? Sometimes I tend to think of technology pretty narrowly, thinking only of computing technology. But there is an amazing amount of engineering involved in setting up a canopy tour that will allow a wide variety of tourists to move safely from tree top to tree top. But that’s not the technology connection that interested me most about yesterday’s adventure.

We went out for a drink after the adventure and we learned that one of the women in our group is deathly afraid of heights. In fact, her family was doubtful that she would be able to jump off the platforms to do the ziplining. Someone said to her, “It’s a good thing we took lots of pictures because otherwise your family wouldn’t believe that you did it.” It was her response that I found most interesting. She said, “I’m glad we took pictures because otherwise I wouldn’t believe I did it.” In other words, the pictures will serve as proof to herself that she experienced her own experiences.

This is an example of what Jean Baudrillard meant when he said that the real no longer exists. (Thanks to Ann for helping me to understand Simulacra and Simulation–in fact, she dragged me through that book). What this provocative statement means is that in contemporary society, the copy has replaced the original in importance. So in order to experience the zip line, the woman who was so deathly afraid actually needs to see the copies of the experience (the images) because they are more real than reality. Baudrillard would say that they are hyperreal.

The hyperreal, the need for a (re)mediation of an experience in order for the experience to feel “real”, is something that I’ve encountered in my own experiences. For example, the day that New Hampshire’s famous Old Man of the Mountain fell off Cannon Mountain, Liz, Evelyn and I were driving to have breakfast at Polly’s Pancake Parlor in Sugar Hill. As we drove through Franconia Notch, I looked for the Old Man and never found it. We joked that perhaps it had finally succumbed to gravity but didn’t believe, despite the evidence before us, that this could actually be true. When we got to Polly’s, we heard that it had indeed fallen. On the way home, heading south through the Notch, I couldn’t believe my eyes–no granite face, police cars and helicopters everywhere. I remember saying that we needed to watch the news to be sure it really had fallen. I needed the experience to be mediated, copied, simulated, in order for it to feel “real” to me.

{April 30, 2008} King of Kong

A few weeks ago, Ann, Greg, Evelyn and I went to the Red River Theater in Concord and saw King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. I was prepared to see a movie that did for competitive video gaming what Spellbound did for spelling bees, what Scrabylon did for competitive Scrabble and what Wordplay did for competitive crossword. I got that and so much more. You need to see this movie.

The documentary tells the story of a Donkey Kong rivalry between Billy Mitchell, a restaurant owner from Hollywood, Florida, who gained a modicum of fame in the early 1980’s when he scored the first perfect score on Pac-Man and Steve Weibe, a family guy from Seattle. Billy is part of competitive gaming royalty, a rock star admired by other competitive gamers for his charisma, gaming ability and mullet haircut. In 1982, he set a high score on Donkey Kong that stood for many years. The film shows Steve Wiebe’s quest to beat that high score. At every turn, Steve is thwarted in his quest by the fact that he is not an insider. The judges of the competition are from an organization called Twin Galaxies, an organization in which Billy Mitchell plays an integral part. At every turn, Steve is screwed over by Billy’s buddies who seem to be unusually invested in maintaining Billy’s mythology. Billy is a bad guy in the movie, proclaiming lofty philosophies of gaming while behaving in ways that are directly opposed to those philosophies. Throughout the movie, I was angry at the injustice of what Steve faced.

And isn’t that the mark of a good movie? Why should I care about whose name goes into the Guinness World Book of Records next to “Live Donkey Kong High Score”? But I did. And that’s why you need to see this movie. It makes you care about a bunch of geeks and their attempts to set records on an obscure game from the early days of video gaming. Even Steve’s young daughter understands the ridiculousness of it all when she tells Steve that Donkey Kong ruins people’s lives.

{March 23, 2008} Online Viewing

Living in central New Hampshire means that access to independent cinema can be problematic. I’ve been a NetFlix subscriber for about 4 years–I’ve appreciated the range of their offerings and have seen some films that I probably wouldn’t have paid to see in a theater. Increasingly, however, I’ve been troubled by the quality of the DVDs that I receive from NetFlix. Often, they are badly scratched. Even when they aren’t BADLY scratched, they might have enough scratches on a section of the DVD that makes that part of the film difficult to view. Several times, I’ve sent a DVD back, asked for a replacement and received a second DVD that also has problems. In fact, that’s the reason that I still haven’t seen A Scanner Darkly–I tried three times before I finally gave up.

Then I discovered that I could watch some movies and TV shows at NetFlix online (free for subscribers). What a great idea! The downside of viewing on NetFlix, however, is that you have to download and install their viewer, which does not work with Firefox (which is my main web browser). But finally, the broadcast networks are discovering that they can extend their audience by offering content online. All four of the major networks have begun offering online content, including of their current shows. And the best thing is that these sites do not require a special viewer. I’ve enjoyed watching Lost at ABC’s site. About a year ago, NBC and Fox collaborated to open hulu.com. CBS’s content is hosted by joost.com. The two things that will make or break these sites are the quality of the content and ease of use. The quality of content is pretty good, I think. The ease of use is fine as long as you want to view the content on your computer. The next step in the ease of use battle is to make it easier to connect the TV itself to the Internet.

{March 21, 2008} iPods and the “Real World”

There have been a number of stories in the past few weeks linking a rise in violent crime rates to increased popularity of small electronic devices like the iPod. The stories are based on a study by the Urban Institute, a non-partisan Washington think tank. The study found that violent crime rose in 2005 and 2006 after falling for the previous fourteen years and that the reason may be the popularity of the iPod.

When someone is using an iPod, he is fairly oblivious to his surroundings–in fact, that obliviousness is part of the point of using the iPod. It allows the user to exist in a world apart which in turn makes him a fairly easy target. An iPod is expensive and desirable which provides the motivation for the crime. And because the iPod is small and popular, once stolen, it doesn’t stand out which means that there is a high likelihood that the perpetrator will get away with the crime. When these three factors come together–a motivation for a crime against a suitably vulnerable victim and with a low likelihood of getting caught–crime is likely to occur.

We went to Boston for a few days earlier this week and I was surprised by the ubiquity of these portable music devices. Here in Plymouth, I’m mostly used to seeing students wearing them–and most students seem to own them. I own one myself but I tend to use it only when I’m exercising. So they are very common in every day life here but mostly just among the student population. In Boston, it was a different experience. People of all types were wearing them on the subway. In fact, there were several times when I saw business men dressed in power suits wearing what looked like very large earrings. When I looked more closely, however, the earrings were ear buds for their iPods. What is it about these devices that make them so popular, especially, it seems, in urban settings?

When I was in college, I spent a semester at the University of Edinburgh. To go from Hanover, NH to Edinburgh, Scotland is a culture shock in so many ways. For me, one of the most challenging aspects was getting used to living amidst so many people in a big city. In Hanover, I would hardly ever wear my Walkman but in Edinburgh, I wore it constantly. As I walked from where I lived to the campus, I listened to mix tapes, my own personal soundtrack. I used the technology to create a private mental space in a place where I lacked a sense of physical space. The technology helped to keep the “real world” at bay so that I could deal with it in my own time and my own way. That’s what I think is going on in today’s urban areas and probably even among my students here in Plymouth who have to share their physical space with roommates. The technology allows us to not pay attention to what’s happening around us. The technology is (in Baudrillard’s words) a deterrence, a distraction that keeps us focused on something other than what’s wrong with the world and with our lives.

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