Cute or Creepy

The new social networking site has plagued my facebook news feed for the past 12 hours.

http://likealittle.com/uwo/

Like a Little begs the question can emerging social networking trends help you find a new love connection in your life? It is based on the concept of 'missed encounters' that one may find in the personals section of a newspaper. The posts on Like a Little only exist for 16 hours and then disappear into cyber-space. The poster has to cling to a glimmer of hope that the person they're looking for is 'creeping' this site, while the poster 'creeps' them in real life. The website itself calls it 'flirting', but it is up to the user to determine whether or not these posts are charming, creepy or just another way to pass the time during exam season.

"I Don't need a shirt that does that..."

Sure, nobody needs a shirt that does anything besides cover their body, but I bet it won't be long before you want one. Andrejevic discusses in his paper about smart clothing technology. Personally I find this concept fascinating. My initial reaction was ‘why not?’ we have digitized many other aspects of our lives, so why not take it one step further. I did not realize that this concept would be so repulsive to some people in our class until we began to discuss it.

People seemed especially offended by the ‘hug’ shirts that were used as an example during the presentation on Andrejevic’s article. I can see where the offense comes from, but I do not understand how some people have such a huge issue with this, considering how much of our communication is already mediated by technology.

There seems to always be a slight resistance when a new technology is introduced. It reminds me of reactions towards touch-screens. Many people felt that they would never use a computer that was completely touch-screen, and early forms of these technologies failed. However; Apple integrated this technology quite well by introducing it in technologies that people are less ‘attached’ to, like iPods. A touch screen iPod seemed cool, whereas a touch screen computer seemed inconvenient or complicated. Slowly they produced other products like the iPhone that were also touch screen. By the time the iPhone had become mainstream, users were much more comfortable with the idea of the touch screen, which is perhaps one of the reasons the iPad had so much immediate success.

I predict that smart-clothing technologies will be introduced with the same technique. Small, ‘fun’ additions first, in order to prepare the market for more highly technical fabrics.

Is taylorism eroding our Public Sphere?

In third year MIT we spend a significant amount of time discussing the idealistic notion of a public sphere. We hypothosize about how to create one, what makes it democratic and if it would ever succeed. Unfortunately, the more time I spend thinking about this issue, the less likely it seems to be.

Robbins and Webster explore emergence of Taylorism as a method of production and its effects on communication throughout the past century in their reading the times of the technoculture. It really made me consider all of the areas of our life (which we feel like we have total autonomy over) that have been over-powered by efficiency and productivity.

The university experience, in its ideal form, is supposed to be one of enlightenment, learning and discovery. However; as we have discussed in class, the North American structure for post-secondary school seems to be more about becoming a consumptive and productive member of society.

Take for example…

· Classroom power-structures

· Corporate partnerships (like Coca-cola and Western)

· Utilitarian architecture (esp. since the 1960s)

· The hierarchy of faculties

· The surveillance of student behaviour

One thing I look forward to discussing in the coming weeks, is methods of resistance, or perhaps instances of university structures that are fighting the taylorism of education.

The Eye of Power

Foucault’s discussion on Bentham’s panopitcon is something that can easily be dismissed as a dated and paranoid. It can be unclear how this theory applies to the way in which we go about our daily lives.

Obviously the structure is an idealized theory, but if we analyze certain structures, we can see how the relationship between the prisoner and the watchman is something that we see re-occurring frequently. Think about the teacher proctoring an exam, or the CCTV at the convenience store- all instilling the fear of being caught, hoping that this will alter our behavior for the better.

The element of the ‘backlight’ is something I find most fascinating about Foucault’s analysis of the panopticon structure. It is so essential to the success of the structure because it makes the visibility of power much weaker. It seems contradictory but this actually enhances the watchmans ability to control because the prisoners are aware of an all-knowing power, without being able to see it.

We experience a similar exercise of power when we construct our online identity through social networking websites like facebook. We are aware that there are ‘powers that be’ observing our content, yet we cannot be sure exactly who they are, and when they are watching us. However; unlike the panopticon, where the prisoners are constantly aware that they are being watched – we have lost that personal sense of surveillance. I do not think that people who use these networks are particularly scared of being seen, but they adhere to a set of unofficial rules in order to keep their online image ‘appropriate’. For example, most university students who use this website are aware that they should set some degree of privacy settings on their account, that they should not have photos of themselves performing illicit activities or blatantly shit-talk someone who could see what they have posted. The backlight effect effectively engages a set of behavioral codes that people obey, without really knowing what or where the source of power comes from.

Personal Privacy?

“The problem is that we don't know what they know, and cannot be sure that their information is correct, or become aware of the kinds of decisions that are based upon it.” Felix Stalder

Surveillance is a scary term. It has become a word synonymous with privacy invasion, spying, and even creeping. Felix Stalder composes an argument in his article “Privacy is not the Antidote to Surveillance” that surveillance has its ups and downs. On one hand, it is a source of great convenience for us. Meanwhile the information that is constantly being collected on us has become a commodity that can be bought and sold by marketing companies. Either way, he illustrates how it is virtually impossible to escape. Upon reading this article, one may become increasingly frustrated with the way in which information is constantly being collected and sold to various sources in order to turn a profit. My question is, why does this make us angry?

The demographic of 15-30 year olds seem to be so willingly transparent. Lets take this new iPhone app I ready about on The NY Times technology blog. The application is called “Marco” (after the childhood game Marco-Polo). It was created to help people find each other using GPS technology. I do not think that most people would find this app shocking in the least; however, present it to my parents and their friends and they would probably be disturbed by our willingness to ‘lay it all out there’.

As Stalder notes, when we use these types of applications, we think of the immediate gratifications, rather than its overall society effect. Personally I have never been scared of the looming idea of ‘big brother’ watching us all- because I have never felt that I had anything that needed to be hidden. Before reading this article I had a rather ego-centric perspective on the idea of surveillance- but Felix Stalder has certainly helped me to reposition my perspective.