Some thoughts on Nomadic Computing Lifestyles

[ based on emails to the Speech group from April/May 1999-2000 ]
 
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Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 13:04:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: Nitin Sawhney
To:

Subject: pager obituary ...
 
This morning at 10:27 AM (Eastern time) my dedicated pager suffered
an unfortunate submersion in the shallow depths of an unsuspecting toilet
bowl. After being recovered, all efforts to revive the breathless pager
were found to be futile. The pager continued to receive 2 final
transmissions before it terminated its connection to the wireless world.
It currently rests in its casket emitting a bark blue display.
 
On quick reflection, I submit two simple insights - pagers are not
waterproof and I'm rather clumsy especially when in a rush. After having
killed one of its kind, I do not feel that I deserve any future services
by the pager community.
 
On deeper reflection, I am beginning to realize the kind of stranglehold
such devices can induce on our lives. Over the last few months I had found
myself completely reliant on the instant assurance of remaining connected
... unconsciously I have found myself checking for messages in situations
where others may have considered it rather rude, in classes where it
certainly disrupted my attention and simply while walking the outdoors.
Even after I turned alerting off, I found a strange desire to want to
nourish my message curiosity every time I found a little break in my busy
day. I think this sort of behavior is rather consuming and I suspect I may
not be the only one who found himself induced into it.
 
But an incident like the one today, gives one a chance to step back and
re-examine how technology affects our social and psychological well being.
I now somehow feel a strange sense of freedom having been accidentally
relieved of instant messaging services. Perhaps it allows me to return to
a meaningful 'message-less vegetarian' lifestyle ....
 
pardon me for sharing this spontaneous stream of consciousness with you.
 
Nitin


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Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 15:31:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: Nitin Sawhney
To:

Subject: Re: 'lifestyle' preference file?
 
I don't really feel strongly anti-mobile tech as I used to in the last year
or so. Its just that having been exposed to cutting edge mobile technology
and working with it over the years, it has simply made me more aware of what
works and doesn't in social settings or for one's personal lifestyle
and cognitive well-being.
 
I do think that a social/cognitive perspective is one that we ought to
keep in mind as we design such technology. John Thackra, the keynote
speaker at CHI mentioned in a debate why "Nokia can't simply provide
people a 'code-of-conduct' to use mobile phones" or design them to be less
obtrusive or turned off easily ... alternatively why not try to provide
info in the environment around us or consider lifestyles (or technology)
that make us less reliant on technology in general. It's a different kind
of thinking about our own behavior and design, as such devices become such
an integral part of our lives.
 
Personally I decided last year to try to manage without any such devices
... it somehow feels freeing and I'm managing just fine. But I fully
understand why others need them. I simply propose that we as a society are
more conscious about how we adopt such technologies in our lives and as
designers think about the impact of our research more carefully. (do I
really want to live in a world where I am constantly reminded about things
to do that I have no short term memory or be accessible by anyone
everywhere that I have no off-device time? :-)
 
I noticed that in Europe despite the pervasiveness of phones, people seem
to be far more sensitive to such 'ecological' issues .. perhaps as a
society they are ahead of us in some ways.
 
So I do think that a 'debate and awareness' on such issues can be very
healthy, especially in an environment like the Media Lab. It would be
interesting to come up with a forum sometime in the future where it would
be productive, but of course it requires careful thinking to pull off easily.
 
my 2 cents.
 
Nitin
 
p.s. Sean recently sent me a link to an article by Bruce Sterling - a
manifesto for the next Millennium that embraces human spirit rather than
technology. Have a look and tell me what you think:
http://www.bespoke.org/viridian/index.asp?t=140

 
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Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 01:42:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: Nitin Sawhney
To:

Subject: Re: Workshop @ NiF in May?
 
I'd like to propose a workshop -
 
"Supporting the Nomadic Lifestyle: Ecological Design of Mobile
Technology?"
 
We get participants to consider nomadic scenarios and how current
technologies are deployed/designed. What works, what doesn't? Why?
What's wrong with prior human/social approaches in such scenarios? What
benefit can advanced mobile technologies provide? What problems/challenges
do they pose?
 
We would certainly highlight our prior & ongoing work in these areas,
while discussing the pros and cons in our design experience, and
open-ended areas for future work.
 
But for the workshop we would emphasize thinking along "ecological"
approaches that take into account personal goals/tasks, information flow,
the physical environment, people around us and effects of long-term usage.
 
We could consider scenarios like:
- sync communication
- async messaging
- info. augmentation
 
subgroups work on each via illustrative examples and come up with design
proposals or simply a framework for thinking/analyzing a nomadic
lifestyle.
 
Hopefully the participants would find it engaging and help us come up with
interesting approaches or even anecdotes to think about nomadic design.
I saw interesting examples of such thinking by industrial and interaction
designers at Philips Design. They showed me a video of some compelling
concepts based around mobile usage scenarios.
 
Does it sound too far-fetched? Perhaps there isn't enough time to prepare
for it this time ... but it could be a worthwhile workshop in the future
(perhaps for DL).
 
comments/ideas?
 
Nitin


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