Comments on: communication moodiness

By: Chuck Olsen

Chuck Olsen — Thu, 13 May 2004 03:02:12 +0000

yikes… i’m the same way.
some take it personally, but most realize i’m just weird with communication. i almost always prefer email, and i really hate answering the phone. even if it’s a friend, i like having the buffer zone.

By: Edward Vielmetti

Edward Vielmetti — Tue, 11 May 2004 11:09:17 +0000

Danah – very interested in the IQL conference, sounds like a fun one. I hope they don’t have wifi and a million power outlets and powerbooks typing away, just for the sake of a little quiet.

By: Mark Federman

Mark Federman — Mon, 10 May 2004 21:15:01 +0000

Bravo, danah! As a society, we have become conditioned by the telephone that we have to “answer” our communication devices when they tell us to. (McLuhan explains this phenomenon in the Telephone chapter of Understanding Media.) But that is, to borrow from Lessig, a matter of code. It is a human-designed construct, not a natural law, that telephones, SMSes, email and other such evils that we have perpetrated on ourselves must be served according to their beck and “call” rather than at our convenience.

Besides, it’s fun to drive other people crazy by letting my phone ring without answering it – fun to watch them restraining themselves from jumping up and answering it themselves, like a scene from Dr. Strangelove! Muhahahah!

By: Stuart

Stuart — Mon, 10 May 2004 17:25:30 +0000

Join Beyond Northern Iraq discussion.

By: zephoria

zephoria — Fri, 07 May 2004 17:51:42 +0000

Brooke – nice try! 208b students luckily are read through “open all tabs” instead of an RSS reader so that i can make certain not to miss a single thing!

By: Brooke Maury

Brooke Maury — Fri, 07 May 2004 15:30:06 +0000

“After opening up my RSS reader to 1600 unread blogs, i just deleted them. I couldn’t deal with the overhead of knowing that i’d never get through all of them.”

So does this mean all of your 208b students get a free pass on our blog assignments?? I posted it danah, you must have deleted it!

By: zephoria

zephoria — Thu, 06 May 2004 10:05:56 +0000

Ed – trust me, i’d love someone to help take care of me. Wouldn’t we all? But on a student (non)salary, i’m lucky to make rent. I remember being told that when you had money, you had no time and when you had time, you had no money. Somehow, the academic life seems to encourage no time and no money.

By: Ed

Ed — Thu, 06 May 2004 09:58:08 +0000

Danah, it sounds like you need a (non-digital) assistant, someone who can put up a thin veneer of adherence to social protocols while letting you do your thing. That way you have the best of both worlds, the perception that you’re with it all the time without the actual need to really be engaged.

By: Nancy

Nancy — Thu, 06 May 2004 08:07:28 +0000

There’s an invitational conference in Seattle next week on Information and the Quality of Life, organized by my friend David Levy at U Wash Information School: http://www.ischool.washington.edu/iql/.

The theme is information (and tech) overload.
The internal site, which is not (yet?) available to outsiders, is *very* interesting.

I notice that a lot of people (not just on the IQL site, but in general) talk about being victimized by info overload and the speedup of life. And many seem to see the solution in somehow getting away from or reducing the volume of info. But if we are overloaded, it is at least partly our own choice. And information and IT *often* makes our lives much *better,* when used wisely. So the question is how to live wisely under these conditions and be intentional about our relationship to info and IT.

I’ve been tangentially involved in the planning and am part of the post-conference what-comes-next planning — I suggest you monitor the site after the conference to see what emerges, and what gets posted publicly. I may post about it after the conference.

By: Tony

Tony — Thu, 06 May 2004 07:31:19 +0000

danah, another thought, r u faust?