You Are Not a Gadget

Check out this interview with Jaron Lanier from Library Journal

Jaron Lanier is one smart dude.  He is way smarter than me or anyone I know.  He is also concerned; VERY concerned about where our current technology is taking us culturally, spiritually, and economically.  In his book, You Are Not a Gadget, Lanier describes a thing called lock-in wherein certain software is designed to fit within an existing one and gets “locked” into place simply because nothing better was ever invented and because it would be too difficult to change the existing model.   As a result we become complacent and accept that there is only one model even though that model might not be ideal.  A lot of web 2.0 designs fit this description.  This is a problem because while these trivial designs seem innovative and seem to promote limitless freedom of personal expression, in reality the communication is impersonal, fragmentary, and made to fit within the pre-set boundaries of the design thereby making authentic interpersonal communication obsolete.

A new philosophy is borne out this complacency and lock-in, something he refers to as the “hive mind” or the collective brain of all the people on the internet.  Because anonymity and pseudonymity are built into the designs, people, as individuals, cease to become the important commodity, making the “network” more real than the individuals who contribute to it.  It also allows for people to behave badly since there can be no consequence for a non-entity.  We begin to define ourselves as multiple choice options that the standardized software programs offer us.  We become flat and one-dimensional; defined by the software. He rejects the idea that the intellectual contributions of the collective mind are superior to the individual (something that Clay Shirky calls Cognitive Surplus) and warns against falling into this misguided mindset.

Within this new “open” and “free” culture, we are trading in the original artist or expert in exchange for the ability to “mash-up” so-called new products from already existing ones.  This is leading us to a dark age culturally because nothing truly new is being created.  The idea that all information should be free is actually the cause for mediocrity.  The hive mind cannot produce what one creative individual can and there is no capital incentive anymore for the true innovators to create.  We can already see this in the music and publishing industries. He proposes a universal system in which bits have value and are no longer free.

He believes the most important thing to ask about technology is how it changes us.  It may seem he is anti-technology, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.  Lanier is one of the pioneers of virtual reality and has been involved in countless cutting-edge projects that have shaped the present state of digital technology.  He simply wants people to realize that there can be alternatives to the current design(s)-alternatives that celebrate humanity, human kindness, and individual intelligence.

You Are Not a Gadget is a heavy, intellectually-challenging read, but definitely worth it.  Reading Jaron Lanier will expand your mind.  There is just no getting around it.

Lanier, J. (2010). You are not a gadget: A manifesto. New York: A.A. Knopf.

Keeping up with the Tech-ians

I thought it was fun going back in time to see  the Twelve  Techie Things for Libraries in 2005, which, technologically speaking, is like 15 years instead of just 5.  More interesting to me was that all those trends can be seen in use today. I don't think anyone can argue the value of keeping up with tech trends, especially as it a) becomes more mainstream, and b) provides easier access to information, and c) is just fun and cool.   There is no escaping technology.  So goes the saying, if you can't beat 'em...

I've got a story about technology.  Before too long ago, I didn't have Twitter and didn't really understand the point of it.  This past weekend I really wanted a great recipe for braised short ribs for my husband's birthday dinner.  I googled like you wouldn't believe.  I just still kept coming up with the same old results and wasn't finding the exact thing I wanted.  So, I took it to Twitter.  I remember reading somewhere for this class that you could just post a question and people will give you all sorts of interesting feedback.  Problem is, I've only got 18 followers-you guys, so my pool is quite small.  I put "braised short ribs recipe" into the Twitter search thingy and voila! I got exactly what I was looking for.  I never even conceived that Twitter could be used as a search engine, but I really learned a lot from that experiment.  I now am following this weird blog called The Pioneer Woman because she's got amazing recipes that include step by step photos which I love when trying new recipes.  Anyway, it just opened up this whole new world to me by accident really,  and I understand the value of being part of a community where you can have human interaction and human feedback; not just Google algorithm results.  Pretty pleased with that.

On another techie note, I helped my non-techie friend design her business website and taught her how to add links, video, gadgets, Twitter, Facebook, etc... I am now her consultant. I get paid in compliments, though.  It's okay-it's my first practice teaching.  More than just knowing how to  physically do these things, though, I was able to show her the value of these tools.   Originally she was just going to have a very basic website with little extraneous information on it.   She is a therapist with a private practice. From being her friend for over 20 years, I know that teaching her clients how to help themselves is very important to her.  I got her to re-think the purpose of her website.  She will now have an educational area of her website where she can post videos, articles, etc... for that purpose.  People will also be able to connect with her via RSS, Twitter, Facebook.  Even though she will still have to build her business by word of mouth, it will be easier for her to spread her tentacles and reach a broader audience. (SOCIAL NETWORKING!)

For me, technology has to be convenient for the user, convenient to the user,  and easy to learn.  Technological trends that have a steep learning curve are just not going to make it.  Example-Second Life.  It's just too complicated to learn to be effective in more than a few specific realms.  Personally, I am completely on the bandwagon when it comes to mobile devices and augmented reality.  I can't tell you how many times I wished I knew an area better so that I could eat at a good local restaurant.  Like that hilarious video we all saw about the girl losing her phone (a fate worse than her cat dying), I live by my phone too.  I read books, I look up information, I text people, I blog, I upload videos to YouTube, I use the Layar app to find cool stuff.  I like that information is now at our fingertips. It leaves more time to Twitter...

Twiterature

I identified wholeheartedly with the idea of the fragmented mind-not being able anymore to concentrate on one task at a time, especially if that task is taking place on or near a computer.  I found myself reading an article for this class, toggling over to iGoogle to see if I had any updates on Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, or my RSS feeds, switching over to Amazon.com to get a review for a book that was mentioned in one of the articles, and then clicking on Dictionary.com if I wanted the definition of word I didn't know. Being aware of this, though, didn't change my behavior at all. Having immediate access to  potential trivial information was/is just too tempting.  I imagine everyone else feels the same way.   Nicolas Carr talks about how the internet is actually changing our brains, how we think, react, feel, act in his article, Is Google Making Us Stupid?.  We don't read like we used to, we don't concentrate like we used to, our expectations for short, fragments of info interspersed with snippets of flashy multimedia is becoming the new norm. The threat of artificial intelligence actually becoming smarter than us is lurking around the dark corner of the future.  Well, maybe it's not so doomsday, but he does have a point.

Okay. Let's realize something, though-computers cannot be programmed but by us (humans, that is) so I'm not really that worried about a world being taken over by smart machines.  Are you? That being said, technology definitely IS changing us, our behavior, our expectations.  We want it faster, more accurate, in our homes, at our fingertips.  If that is the case, who are and how must libraries reach their users? Will they even have users in the future? Are millennials really all that different from us oldies? For the obvious reasons that they have never  known a different, analog world-yes.  And they get to do much cooler stuff on their computers than we ever did. They get to create, have a voice (anonymous or not), be in constant contact with their peers, download and share music quickly with their friends, get instantaneous answers that we used to have to look up in a paper encyclopedia.  Someone else posted that they didn't really feel that far removed from millennials in the sense that they have stayed more or less up on technology.  I feel the same way.  And I don't think teens are a whole lot different than we were; they just have a new platform from which to express themselves.  It's fun to think about the ways a new generation will be-the new mindsets, the new ideas that are yet to be born, the differences in new values vs. the old ones, but one thing always remains the same-change is change.  As librarians, we have to be in tune with how the world and the people in it are changing and keep up with it.

L2 oh.

Let me just start by reminding everyone that Halloween is right around the corner.  Okay, I'm a first time parent, blah, blah, blah, but this means that I am looking at baby costumes and I just have to share one that I found on amazon.com.  It's hilarious. Okay, I probably won't end up doing that to my daughter, but aren't you glad you saw this? Yeah, I thought so.

I also want to let everyone know just how much time I frittered away this week playing with this 2.0 stuff.  Holy #%$$!  A few really good things came out of it.  I completely streamlined my digital life using iGoogle.  I centralized all my various accounts to one page so that I wouldn't have to keep going to different urls to check all my stuff.  I'm sure I am the last person to do this, but if I'm not and if, by chance, there is anyone out there who also hadn't discovered this little gem of info-then please take my advice and do it now.  It has completely changed my life. Okay, maybe not, but it's helpful.  And probably saves me an average of about 45 minutes per day.  The other good thing is that I figured out how to blog by phone.  My original impetus to do so was because I had so many photos on my phone camera and wanted to post some of them to another blog I just started about my daughter.  After HOURS of trying to figure it out, I finally got it, but when I uploaded the pics to the blog, they didn't work.  Ugh.  Next best thing came when I realized that I could upload all my photos to Picasa and have them stored right in the clouds! So, all was not in vain. It's amazing what technology exists and that I am only just figuring it out now.  I'm old.

Jump to-point of this week's reading about participatory services and redesign in the library.  L2? YES!!! We have to, we must, it's the only way! Okay, let's just get something straight, though-I am not THAT old, but I can tell you that most of the people my age and older couldn't care less about tweeting and don't really use too much participatory technology in their daily lives apart from Facebook.  However, I think the only way to stay relevant and to be able to "speak" the language of the younger generations, libraries especially have got to get on board.  And I don't mean just with the technology.  That whole idea of changing the mission of the library in John Blyberg's blog is what I'm talking about and what The Transformation Lab is all about.  I mean that Lab is outrageous! Who wouldn't want to work there? I found myself asking, "what do I deep down think a library's goal and services should be?" Is it to be a meeting place? Is it to get information? Is it to be able to read? Is it a place for entertainment? Is it a place for self-discovery and learning?  What do I use my library for? How often do I realistically use my library? What would make me use it more?

We all know the quiet book library is a dying, if not already dead library.  Libraries have to ask themselves those same questions. Who aren't we reaching? How can we get to those people? What could we offer our patrons that would really enhance their experience here?  What are we doing to make finding things easier? Are we accessible from home? Do we provide relevant programs that our community actually cares about? What does our community care about?I guess that's what L2 is to me so even if a library can't financially do what The Transformation Lab did, they can still ask the important questions and be willing to change.