Two weeks ago, in a lecture on intimacy and media, I said “mobile phones have become ‘witnesses, companions, and alibis,’ to our feelings and lives,” quoting Kathleen Cumiskey and Larissa Hjorth’s book.[1] “My devices are an extension of my senses,” I went on, referencing Marshall McLuhan. “I am extended through them and they impact me and my feelings.” We had just read McLuhan’s work on media as an extension of man.[2] I recounted his warning, a metaphor: “Every extension is an amputation.” But I disliked the image, I said, it’s imprecise. I am not actually amputated. Lately, I crave nuance.
In my daily life, I’ve been feeling complicated and stimulated and that’s no surprise given my full calendar. In the past week, I’ve attended three in-person literary and arts events and a live online workshop in addition to my usual routines and responsibilities. Last weekend, the Portland Book Festival. Of the many activities, I attended the middle-grade Adventure & Mystery panel with authors Jewell Parker Rhodes and Nisi Shawl, moderated by Vera Ahiyya—perfect for the 10-year-old in my life who eagerly sat in the front row. (We have copies of Shawl’s fantastical magic history Speculation and Rhodes’s remastery of Treasure Island, set in Manhattan, and I plan to read them both as soon).
Back in Seattle, I’d arranged a field trip to the WNDR Museum to explore with the interactive media studies undergraduates, more on this below. On Wednesday, I attended a Writer’s Pitch Workshop with Amber Petty (I recommend it!) and made two new internet friends (!!). And, at the end of the week, I went to the Seattle Town Hall & Clarion West event on AI and authorship, with Ted Chaing and Emily Bender. Again, it’s not a shock that I feel complicated and stimulated, but, I’m also increasingly curious about what sets of mediated circumstances—designs—move me to feel something. (As they say, I like to take my work home with me.)
Katherine Isbister, a computational design researcher, writes that interactive media, specifically video games, resonate emotionally by design.[3] Consider concerns about the social effects of violence in video games and concern about the emotional harm of social media—Meta is being sued for purposely making their digital products addictive and emotionally manipulative, damaging to young people.[4] Isbister’s take on interactive media could help explain why video games can’t necessarily be blamed for violence—in fact, the millions of adults who play violent games like Fortnite, Waco, or The Last of Us do not commit crimes. They might feel proud or accomplished. Meanwhile, social media users feel lonely, anxious, and compelled to return to the platform at all hours. Even if it’s to see images as banal as people brushing their teeth or eating at a restaurant.
What’s happening? Following Isbister’s logic, games with immersive narratives that prioritize user choice engender a sense of agency. Players make choices that have consequences, which lead to feelings like remorse and pride. On the flip, social media apps, such as Instagram and Facebook, use regular interruptions, attention-grabbing notifications, infinite scrolling, and recommended content to reduce agency and ensnare users into an unrequited emotional dependency. They can’t make choices with consequences in quite the same way. The situation reminds me of handsome Narcissus, in love with his image in the looking glass. His desire was unrequited. He stared in longing and lived in perpetual anguish until he died of thirst and starvation.
I thought of Narcissus on the field trip. I’d secured university funding to go to WNDR, pronounced wonder, which “implicates you in the exhibits,” I told the students. In an interview with Geekwire, co-creator Zac Hall explained the museum highlights the entanglements of humanity and machines. He described the exhibit that features a beating human heart gripped by a robot as “a metaphor for the way that we feel like we are being held in the hands of technology. It really is driving the heartbeat of daily lives and the world around us.”[5] The exhibit, titled Hyper Mirror, is made of screens and mirrors. There are red and blue versions. The red is the heart. The blue features a serene landscape and cute, flying smartphones. I asked: “You make it move; how are you moved in response?”
I was moved to take selfies. Moved by the promise of sharing cool visuals later, of amplifying myself in the socials. This gave me a sense of unease since I wasn’t actively using my phone. How had an app’s imaginary become a habit inside me?
I have sought neologisms to name these habits over the years. As mentioned, I dislike McLuhan’s “amputation.” I dislike the binary of “gripped” or “blissful ignorance.” “Co-presence,” a concept in media studies drawn from Erving Goffman’s work, helps, but doesn’t account for power. Donna Haraway’s “cyborg” feels, sadly, hackneyed. I want a concept that accounts for my paranoia of being followed, my closeness to my friends who live far away, and the consequences of the style of a button.
Do we need a name? Design impacts outcome. In user experience design for shopping, if a page links away from a checkout page (to “learn more,” for instance), it shouldn’t be a big shock that sales numbers drop. Users have navigated away to learn more. From cart to checkout, only one click. Grocery stores are organized the same way. One path. What kind of world do we want to design?
At the Town Hall event, concerns about AI stir unrest in the crowd. Is it inevitable that corporations are replacing workers with AI? Is it wrong to use AI writers? Is there anything good? I want to talk about my students and their curiosity and resourcefulness. I want to talk about helping each other. The conversation twists and turns and I am last in line to speak. I sense a need for reassurance from Ted Chaing and Emily Bender that humanity is arcing towards collective expressions of creativity and dignity, for all.
In a shaky voice, I ask: “What gives you hope?”
Book recommendation
Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution
Cat Bohannon
Cat Bohanon was at the Portland Book Festival so I bought her book, Eve, pitched as a feminist corrective to Sapiens. Bohannon’s style makes me laugh. After reading, I’m convinced I’ll be prepared for trivia nights about genes, evolution, and natural selection and/or imaginative mammalian role plays set millions of years ago—to present. The book is an ambitious deep dive into ancient prehistory. While Bohannon’s “Eves” are multiple. I’ll note Bohannon is a cautious contemporary writer in our times of gender fluidity, and gives, so far, mostly useful nuance into distinctions around gender identification and chromosomal sex markers, though, to be frank, I’m only a few chapters in so this is hardly a complete review. Feminist science nonfiction is not my usual read, but the research and topic are expansive and stoke my curiosity. I want to keep reading. I consider that recommendation enough.
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Monika
The Gift
[1] Cumiskey, Kathleen M., and Larissa Hjorth. 2017. Haunting Hands: Mobile Media Practices and Loss. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
[2] McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: Extensions of Man. New York : Ontario: New American Library.
[3] Isbister, Katherine. 2016. "Chapter 1: A series of interesting choices," in How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 1-45
[4] https://www.reuters.com/legal/dozens-us-states-sue-meta-platforms-harming-mental-health-young-people-2023-10-24/
[5] https://www.geekwire.com/2023/wndr-ful-for-downtown-seattle-inside-the-new-immersive-museum-that-blends-art-and-tech