User:Wordfa/thesis-outline: Difference between revisions
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== Googling 'How should a person be?' == | == Googling 'How should a person be?' == | ||
[[File:Screenshot 2025-11-19 at 15.01.50.png|thumb|364x364px|A screenshot from Even Realities website describing the capabilities of their new G2 AR glasses. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZrcgiKFOD0&t=8s See their 'zen' Demo.]]] | [[File:Screenshot 2025-11-19 at 15.01.50.png|thumb|364x364px|A screenshot from Even Realities website describing the capabilities of their new G2 AR glasses. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZrcgiKFOD0&t=8s See their 'zen' Demo.]]] | ||
<blockquote>“It feels incredibly easy to navigate to the airport without looking at mapping app but also strange without an authoritative app to calm my anxious travelling mind.” | <blockquote>“It feels incredibly easy to navigate to the airport without looking at a mapping app but also strange without an authoritative app to calm my anxious travelling mind.” | ||
“When wild camping that night at lake ... start to panic that the camper is gonna roll down the hill. Putting stones under the tires, turning the wheel and putting the van in gear eventually calm my nerves. I know these half forgotten things can help stop a car from rolling | “When wild camping that night at a lake ... I start to panic that the camper is gonna roll down the hill. Putting stones under the tires, turning the wheel and putting the van in gear eventually calm my nerves. I know these half forgotten things can help stop a car from rolling downhill, but I still feel an urge to Google, 'How to stop a camper van rolling down a hill Reddit'." | ||
“It's my birthday, we swim in the lake, finding our own path down to the water (more difficult than you would | “It's my birthday, we swim in the lake, finding our own path down to the water (more difficult than you would expect). I think a little about how if I had a phone I would look at different maps and forums to find us the perfect route to the perfect beach on this lake.” | ||
''-- Extracts from '[[User:Wordfa/Elimination Diet|No Phone]]', A reflection I wrote on travelling without a phone. --''</blockquote> | ''-- Extracts from '[[User:Wordfa/Elimination Diet|No Phone]]', A reflection I wrote on travelling without a phone. --''</blockquote> | ||
=== Introduction === | === Introduction === | ||
It may be common wisdom that more access to knowledge is inherently good, a positive force in this world. While acknowledging this, it can also be said that the Internet, and '''frictionless''' artefacts that permit us access, come with a 'an enormous '''social mortgage'''<nowiki/>' (Franklin, 1990). In this essay, I want to explore this '<nowiki/>'''social mortgage'''<nowiki/>'. How having the Internet at our fingertips changes how we trust ourselves. My thesis is that ''''frictionless'''<nowiki/>' authoritative devices such as smartphones both sooth our anxiety around making decisions but also are the cause that same anxiety. Or to put it another way, the way 'effortless' access to all human knowledge demands its own use. | It may be common wisdom that more access to knowledge is inherently good, a positive force in this world. While acknowledging this, it can also be said that the Internet, and the '''frictionless''' artefacts that permit us access, come with a 'an enormous '''social mortgage'''<nowiki/>' (Franklin, 1990). In this essay, I want to explore this '<nowiki/>'''social mortgage'''<nowiki/>'. How having the Internet at our fingertips changes how we trust ourselves. My thesis is that ''''frictionless'''<nowiki/>' authoritative devices, such as smartphones, both sooth our anxiety around making decisions but also are the cause that same anxiety. Or to put it another way, the way 'effortless' access to all human knowledge demands its own use. | ||
The impetus for this line of inquiry came in September, while I tried going on holiday without my phone. One of the themes that kept coming up, as illustrated above, was that I craved the authority of the internet, for someone to pat me on the back and confirm my first instinct. | The impetus for this line of inquiry came in September, while I tried going on holiday without my phone. One of the themes that kept coming up, as illustrated in the extracts above, was that I craved the authority of the internet, for someone to pat me on the back and confirm my first instinct. | ||
This is also a common feeling I have when buying stuff online; Am I getting the right ThinkPad? Is 'Gen 1' better than 'Gen 2', or what about the AMD variation? That the ability to find 'perfect' answers, can seem in some ways all consuming. Once you know you could be doing something better, it is near impossible to not want to find out how. In other words, how does a Technological Society (Ellul, 1964) devalue instinct, prioritise efficiency and lead to automatism. | This is also a common feeling I have when buying stuff online; Am I getting the right ThinkPad? Is 'Gen 1' better than 'Gen 2', or what about the AMD variation? That the ability to find 'perfect' answers, can seem in some ways all consuming. Once you know you could be doing something better, it is near impossible to not want to find out how. In other words, how does a Technological Society (Ellul, 1964) devalue instinct, prioritise efficiency and lead to automatism. | ||
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In this chapter I am to define '''frictionless''' as an aesthetic of consumer technology (Maurer & Wouters, 2024), aimed at the perfect end users. To question whether '''frictionless''' is just a product of capitalism and capitalist technologist or something inevitable in cultures that embody the values of technology. i.e. Who would choose to use a more '''frictionful''' method, especially when they just worked an 8-hour day. | In this chapter I am to define '''frictionless''' as an aesthetic of consumer technology (Maurer & Wouters, 2024), aimed at the perfect end users. To question whether '''frictionless''' is just a product of capitalism and capitalist technologist or something inevitable in cultures that embody the values of technology. i.e. Who would choose to use a more '''frictionful''' method, especially when they just worked an 8-hour day. | ||
I also aim to establish, the ideology of 'universal access to knowledge', it's link to computational values (Weizenbaum, 1976) and the popularisation of transhumanist ideas (Hailes, 1999). | I also aim to establish, the ideology of 'universal access to knowledge', it's link to computational values (Weizenbaum, 1976) and the popularisation of transhumanist ideas (Hailes, 1999). All in order to explore how the values of technique and efficiency trickled down to consumers. With this being established, I then want to look at how more barriers to knowledge were dropped via the Internet and then friction was removed (for the creators 'ideal' user) when the Internet moved to smartphones. | ||
With this being established, I then want to look at how barriers to knowledge were dropped via the Internet and then friction was removed (for the creators 'ideal' user) when the Internet moved to smartphones | |||
===== Chapter Two – The Expressions of Frictionless Knowledge ===== | ===== Chapter Two – The Expressions of Frictionless Knowledge ===== | ||
In this section I plan to look at human stories around the topic. Starting with Googling what is better in productive contexts (which toaster should I buy, or price comparison) but also how the same idea of perfection move into efficient leisure (watching the film with the best reviews or which beach is the most beautiful). To explore how this '''frictionless''' aesthetic interweaves with societal values of efficiency and perfection, and it's resulting mortgages, I will present and discuss a series of personal anecdotes from others. Much of these will be gathered as outputs from workshops to do with my grad project, which explicitly asks for the sharing of Technological '''social mortgages'''. | In this section I plan to look at human stories around the topic. Starting with Googling what is better in productive contexts (which toaster should I buy, or price comparison) but also how the same idea of perfection move into efficient leisure (watching the film with the best reviews or which beach is the most beautiful). To explore how this '''frictionless''' aesthetic interweaves with societal values of efficiency and perfection, and it's resulting mortgages, I will present and discuss a series of personal anecdotes from others. Much of these will be gathered as outputs from workshops to do with [[User:Wordfa/project-proposal|my grad project]], which explicitly asks for the sharing of stories involving personal Technological '''social mortgages'''. | ||
Through this section I aim to explore how hard it is to live in uncertainty (Star, 1990b) and relate to difficulties to resisting technology (Ellul, 1964). | Through this section I aim to explore how hard it is to live in uncertainty (Star, 1990b) and relate to difficulties to resisting technology (Ellul, 1964). | ||
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In this final chapter, I want to build on both the history and current expressions of '''Frictionless''' Knowledge by projecting them into the future. To do so, I will look at the current promises and advertising of AI and AR companies, and how they relate to techniques of efficiency in our personal lives. Especially with regard to how these technologies open up new access to knowledge and resources. Including but not limited to: Biometrics, i.e. learning about your body from a wearable vs searching the Internet. Personal history and knowledge, i.e. training LLMs on your own experiences and corpuses of knowledge. Situational Information, i.e. Augmented Reality overlays on the world around you. | In this final chapter, I want to build on both the history and current expressions of '''Frictionless''' Knowledge by projecting them into the future. To do so, I will look at the current promises and advertising of AI and AR companies, and how they relate to techniques of efficiency in our personal lives. Especially with regard to how these technologies open up new access to knowledge and resources. Including but not limited to: Biometrics, i.e. learning about your body from a wearable vs searching the Internet. Personal history and knowledge, i.e. training LLMs on your own experiences and corpuses of knowledge. Situational Information, i.e. Augmented Reality overlays on the world around you. | ||
Lastly I'm interested in how emerging technologies are able to give new kinds of '''frictionless''' knowledge, especially in regard to form and aesthetic knowledge. Whereas Google can currently 'perfect' knowledge for the best restaurant in a given town, LLMs can allow a 'perfect' knowledge of form | Lastly I'm interested in how emerging technologies are able to give new kinds of '''frictionless''' knowledge, especially in regard to form and aesthetic knowledge. Whereas Google can currently provide 'perfect' knowledge for the best restaurant in a given town, LLMs can allow a 'perfect' knowledge of 'form', i.e. the form of an complaint email or a Birthday card. Both embody an appeal to authority, an aversion to risk and in so a distrust of ourselves. | ||
=== Conclusion === | === Conclusion === | ||
This section is quite unclear, especially as I believe this essay is a way of exploring this question rather than answering. However, one reflection that may transpire, is that maybe we are required to have this '''frictionless''' knowledge because our reality is so complicated and demanding. Again, referencing my Holiday journal about how travelling without a smartphone was impossible in a world where smartphones are normalised. | This section is quite unclear, especially as I believe this essay is a way of exploring this question rather than answering it. However, one reflection that may transpire, is that maybe we are required to have this '''frictionless''' knowledge because our reality is so complicated and demanding. Again, referencing my Holiday journal about how travelling without a smartphone was impossible in a world where smartphones are not only normalised but are integral in the creation our societies current form. | ||
=== Definitions === | === Definitions === | ||
<syntaxhighlight lang="text"> | |||
** Social Mortgage ** | |||
'While we should not forgot that these prescriptive technologies are often exceedingly effective and efficient, they come with an enormous social mortgage' | |||
-- Ursula Franklin (The Real world of Technology, 1990) -- | |||
'Social Mortgage' is a term I am borrowing and remixing from Ursula Franklin's 'The Real world of Technology' (2004). This could be articulated as 'Social Harms' or 'the negative impacts on the social sphere'. However, a reason why I like the term ‘mortgage’ is that a mortgage is side effect of an upfront benefit. Something that doesn’t immediately harm us but accrues a balance of negative impacts over a long period of time. Like a deal with the devil. It conveys this idea of being secret or unmentioned, we talk about the benefit but not it’s cost. Likewise, we often acquire new loans (new technologies) to pay off the debts we have accrued from old loans (excising technologies). | |||
</syntaxhighlight><syntaxhighlight lang="text"> | |||
** Friction/less ** | |||
Building on the manifesto 'Emoticons don't have Wrinkles' (Maurer & Wouters, 2024), I am referring to the ideal and aesthetic of frictionless for the imagined 'perfect' end user. I do feel an irony will emerge that having this easy access to information actually creates more friction in our lives. However, I do think it's important to note that modern consumer technology appears to remove many barriers (political and physical) to information. | |||
Building | </syntaxhighlight> | ||
=== References === | === References === | ||
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Weizenbaum, J. (1976) ''Computer power and human reason: From Judgment to Calculation''. W H Freeman & Company. | Weizenbaum, J. (1976) ''Computer power and human reason: From Judgment to Calculation''. W H Freeman & Company. | ||
{{User:Wordfa/thesis-project-extended-reading-list}} | |||
Latest revision as of 17:20, 21 November 2025
Googling 'How should a person be?'
“It feels incredibly easy to navigate to the airport without looking at a mapping app but also strange without an authoritative app to calm my anxious travelling mind.”
“When wild camping that night at a lake ... I start to panic that the camper is gonna roll down the hill. Putting stones under the tires, turning the wheel and putting the van in gear eventually calm my nerves. I know these half forgotten things can help stop a car from rolling downhill, but I still feel an urge to Google, 'How to stop a camper van rolling down a hill Reddit'."
“It's my birthday, we swim in the lake, finding our own path down to the water (more difficult than you would expect). I think a little about how if I had a phone I would look at different maps and forums to find us the perfect route to the perfect beach on this lake.”
-- Extracts from 'No Phone', A reflection I wrote on travelling without a phone. --
Introduction
It may be common wisdom that more access to knowledge is inherently good, a positive force in this world. While acknowledging this, it can also be said that the Internet, and the frictionless artefacts that permit us access, come with a 'an enormous social mortgage' (Franklin, 1990). In this essay, I want to explore this 'social mortgage'. How having the Internet at our fingertips changes how we trust ourselves. My thesis is that 'frictionless' authoritative devices, such as smartphones, both sooth our anxiety around making decisions but also are the cause that same anxiety. Or to put it another way, the way 'effortless' access to all human knowledge demands its own use.
The impetus for this line of inquiry came in September, while I tried going on holiday without my phone. One of the themes that kept coming up, as illustrated in the extracts above, was that I craved the authority of the internet, for someone to pat me on the back and confirm my first instinct.
This is also a common feeling I have when buying stuff online; Am I getting the right ThinkPad? Is 'Gen 1' better than 'Gen 2', or what about the AMD variation? That the ability to find 'perfect' answers, can seem in some ways all consuming. Once you know you could be doing something better, it is near impossible to not want to find out how. In other words, how does a Technological Society (Ellul, 1964) devalue instinct, prioritise efficiency and lead to automatism.
In this essay I want to map how we got to this point, how it feels to live with these kinds of technologies and explore how emerging technologies build on these values.
Form
This thesis will be an Essay with all the emotional and opinionated baggage that comes with that. While I will draw on theoretical sources, I want to err on the side of naivety and romanticism, to embrace sincerity and to advocate for values I believe in (spontaneity, human scale, prioritising local relationships). Throughout, I also plan to present first-hand research, gathered during public moments and other methods, to layer my opinions and experiences with others.
What I don't want to talk about
I don't want to talk about whether the information the Internet provides is true or not. Neither do I wish to focus on if/how this access to knowledge serves political or economic interests. While I will often brush up against this topic, as they are a factor in adoption, normalisation, and maintenance of this technologically, I am more interested in our embodied experiences.
Proposed Chapters
Chapter One – The History of Frictionless Knowledge
In this chapter I am to define frictionless as an aesthetic of consumer technology (Maurer & Wouters, 2024), aimed at the perfect end users. To question whether frictionless is just a product of capitalism and capitalist technologist or something inevitable in cultures that embody the values of technology. i.e. Who would choose to use a more frictionful method, especially when they just worked an 8-hour day.
I also aim to establish, the ideology of 'universal access to knowledge', it's link to computational values (Weizenbaum, 1976) and the popularisation of transhumanist ideas (Hailes, 1999). All in order to explore how the values of technique and efficiency trickled down to consumers. With this being established, I then want to look at how more barriers to knowledge were dropped via the Internet and then friction was removed (for the creators 'ideal' user) when the Internet moved to smartphones.
Chapter Two – The Expressions of Frictionless Knowledge
In this section I plan to look at human stories around the topic. Starting with Googling what is better in productive contexts (which toaster should I buy, or price comparison) but also how the same idea of perfection move into efficient leisure (watching the film with the best reviews or which beach is the most beautiful). To explore how this frictionless aesthetic interweaves with societal values of efficiency and perfection, and it's resulting mortgages, I will present and discuss a series of personal anecdotes from others. Much of these will be gathered as outputs from workshops to do with my grad project, which explicitly asks for the sharing of stories involving personal Technological social mortgages.
Through this section I aim to explore how hard it is to live in uncertainty (Star, 1990b) and relate to difficulties to resisting technology (Ellul, 1964).
Chapter Three – The Future of Frictionless Knowledge
In this final chapter, I want to build on both the history and current expressions of Frictionless Knowledge by projecting them into the future. To do so, I will look at the current promises and advertising of AI and AR companies, and how they relate to techniques of efficiency in our personal lives. Especially with regard to how these technologies open up new access to knowledge and resources. Including but not limited to: Biometrics, i.e. learning about your body from a wearable vs searching the Internet. Personal history and knowledge, i.e. training LLMs on your own experiences and corpuses of knowledge. Situational Information, i.e. Augmented Reality overlays on the world around you.
Lastly I'm interested in how emerging technologies are able to give new kinds of frictionless knowledge, especially in regard to form and aesthetic knowledge. Whereas Google can currently provide 'perfect' knowledge for the best restaurant in a given town, LLMs can allow a 'perfect' knowledge of 'form', i.e. the form of an complaint email or a Birthday card. Both embody an appeal to authority, an aversion to risk and in so a distrust of ourselves.
Conclusion
This section is quite unclear, especially as I believe this essay is a way of exploring this question rather than answering it. However, one reflection that may transpire, is that maybe we are required to have this frictionless knowledge because our reality is so complicated and demanding. Again, referencing my Holiday journal about how travelling without a smartphone was impossible in a world where smartphones are not only normalised but are integral in the creation our societies current form.
Definitions
** Social Mortgage **
'While we should not forgot that these prescriptive technologies are often exceedingly effective and efficient, they come with an enormous social mortgage'
-- Ursula Franklin (The Real world of Technology, 1990) --
'Social Mortgage' is a term I am borrowing and remixing from Ursula Franklin's 'The Real world of Technology' (2004). This could be articulated as 'Social Harms' or 'the negative impacts on the social sphere'. However, a reason why I like the term ‘mortgage’ is that a mortgage is side effect of an upfront benefit. Something that doesn’t immediately harm us but accrues a balance of negative impacts over a long period of time. Like a deal with the devil. It conveys this idea of being secret or unmentioned, we talk about the benefit but not it’s cost. Likewise, we often acquire new loans (new technologies) to pay off the debts we have accrued from old loans (excising technologies).
** Friction/less **
Building on the manifesto 'Emoticons don't have Wrinkles' (Maurer & Wouters, 2024), I am referring to the ideal and aesthetic of frictionless for the imagined 'perfect' end user. I do feel an irony will emerge that having this easy access to information actually creates more friction in our lives. However, I do think it's important to note that modern consumer technology appears to remove many barriers (political and physical) to information.
References
Ellul, J. (1964) The technological society. Vintage.
Franklin, U.M. (2004) The real world of technology. House of Anansi Press Inc.
Maurer, L. and Wouters, R. (2024) Emoticons don't have Wrinkles. Hato Press.
Star, S.L. (1990b) 'Power, Technology and the Phenomenology of Conventions: On being Allergic to Onions,' The Sociological Review, 38(1_suppl), pp. 26–56. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954x.1990.tb03347.x.
Weizenbaum, J. (1976) Computer power and human reason: From Judgment to Calculation. W H Freeman & Company.
Extended Reading List
italics indicates incompletion
Read
Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation ~ Joseph Weizenbaum (1976)
Do Artifacts Have Politics? ~ Langdon Winner (1980)
E unibus pluram: television and U.S. fiction. ~ David Foster Wallace (1993)
Designing Friction ~ Luna Maurer and Roel Wouters (2023)
Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life ~ Adam Greenfield (2016)
Post-Scarcity Anarchism ~ Murray Bookchin (2004)
Does Technology Drive History? ~ Smith & Marx (1994)
Do Machines Make History? ~ Robert L.Heilbroner (1967)
The Political and Feminist Dimensions of Technological Determinism ~ Rosalind Williams (2004)
The Technological Society ~ Jacques Ellul (1964)
The Real world of Technology ~ Ursula Franklin (1990)
Digital Discomfort ~ Cell for Digital Discomfort (Cristina Cochior, Karl Moubarak, and Jara Rocha) (2022)
Power, Technology, and the Phenomenology of Conventions: On Being Allergic to Onions ~ Susan Leigh Star (2016)
The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction ~ Ursula Le Guin (1986)
To Have Done with the Massacre of the Body ~ Félix Guattari (1973)
When Old Technologies Were New ~ Carolyn Marvin (1990)
Resisting the virtual life: the culture and politics of information ~ Various (1995)
Reading
The Second Self ~ Sherry Turkle (1984)
How we became Posthuman ~ N. Katherine Hailes (1999)
To Read
Ellul’s alternative theory of technology: Anticipating the fourth milieu of virtuality ~ Kevin Garrison (2012)
Holes in the web ~ Richard Fisher (2025)
The impact of technological advancement on culture and society ~ Abdullah Alsaleh (2024)
Joseph Weizenbaum: A Parrhesiastes in the Digital Age ~ Rafael Capurro (2021)
Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed is a book ~ James C. Scott (1998)
Interface Frictions: How Digital Debility Reshapes Our Bodies ~ Neta Alexander (2025)
Cyberhotels & Other Tales of Forgotten Virtual Worlds ~ Kendal Beynon (2022)
Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now ~ Douglas Ruskoff (2013)
Staying with the Trouble ~ Donna Haraway (2016)
Digital McLuhan: A Guide to the Information Millennium ~ Paul Levinso (1999)
Human Scale ~ Kirkpatrick Sale (1990)
More Work For Mother ~ Ruth Schwartz Cowan (1985)
Suggested by others
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