fredag den 6. december 2013

Brain dump - Dumbphone experiment

Tomorrow I will be beginning a small experiment inspired by the fast we tried out earlier in this course. Instead of going on a total fast like the last time, this experiment is constructed to generate data about my thoughts and feelings toward, not being able to connect to social networks and media all the time, with a touch on the large screen on my phone. To do this, I've come up with the idea of making my phone dumb by stripping off all of it's smart features. This means that for a period of 48 hours will be using my smartphone as a regular phone, for only SMS and calls, it will be unusable to search the web for anything, it won't notify me on activity on social media, and I can't use it for killing time checking something or everything that falls into my mind.

So how do I actually feel about this experiment? I've previously posted about my thoughts on the "myself as a heavy user"- experiment, which I wasn't very happy about participating in, this experiment on the other hand, I find very interesting, and that is why I'm going to conduct it! When I think back to my younger years, and to the time I got my first phone, which was when SMS was first emerging, it opened up a whole new world for me! The reason I got this phone, was due my switch to a new school, and my parents wanted me to be able to get in contact with them, and my new friends at this school, wherever I was. The phone was quite limited, and also quite expensive to use, so it was more of an emergency-thing, than for entertainment (that came later when i got my Nokia 5110, which had snake!). In the recent years we have seen the emerging technology of the smartphone, before this period, smart phones (not smartphones!) where primarily reserved for businessmen that needed to check their email and be connected to their business all the time. These phones where powered by Windows Mobile or Symbian, and had internet connectivity, which at this period in time shifted from being by-the-minute (WAP) to a more stable passive but stable (and faster!) connection in EDGE. The cost of data was still so high though, that it still was reserved for the 'important' businesses. Today we have smartphones, which basically means a phone, that is capable of 3. party apps and internet connectivity primarily through the cellular network at 3G or 4G (almost, since LTE is technically not 4G) speeds, speeds that are actually higher than what most people have in their homes. The availability of WiFi-hotspots around the cities and in the homes, made this evolution possible, as people wasn't forced to pay high data-rates at first, but could start out with using the new features, when they were at home, or another place with wireless connectivity. With the recent drop in data rates, we are using our phones like never before, and where SMS was the cash cow of the 00's, data is definitely the cash cow of the 10's!
I have to stop my self before running out of hand with anecdotes.. What I'm trying to say with this, is that the evolution happened so quickly, and for a child growing up with the change, and experiencing it on first hand, it was interesting and exciting! I didn't think about how my usage changed, I just followed along and tried to keep up with the latest technologies (yes, I'm tech savvy, I talked my parents into buying modem, broadband internet, switches, routers and wireless networks for the benefit of the whole family). This has put me in a position where I never really had to make up my mind about jumping onto a new technology, as the evolution was already on-going and coming so fast, that there was no time to take a decision, you could either follow along or step out. But now I believe that we have reached some kind of standstill in the development, as out phones are only getting faster, getting more space and larger screens, the innovation of the market has slowed down, to more of an incremental type of innovation. This gives time to catch our breath and reflect upon our use in the past, and this is what I try to be doing this experiment, reflect on my usage, by taking myself back to the time where i had my first colorscreen phone with a separate camera (my SonyEricsson T310i, what a badboy!), which could send SMS, call and take pictures if I brought the camera along. It was WAP-capable, but since there was really no sites available this can't be transferred till today.

By doing this I'm still connectable, but by forcing myself to use media on my laptop, I hope to see a glimpse of what impact the smartphone really has made to my life, by taking myself on a journey back to the start of the era, and relive the experience, although only for a couple of days.

torsdag den 5. december 2013

Brain dump - Heavy user experiment

I've been thinking about doing two different experiments to gather data for my exam paper. One is to make my smartphone a dumbphone, and stripping it for all it's fancy capabilities, and using it only for SMS and calls. I'll be talking about that in another post. This post will be about the other experiment I've been thinking about: being a heavy user of social media. This experiment will be based on me setting som rules for my social media behavior, where I force myself to comment on others post's as well as posting content xx times a day. This experiment would force myself to do something I don't do a lot; be active on social media! I usually lurk and be passive, I really don't know why I don't use the different media to a higher degree, but I now how I don't want to be perceived on social media; as a person who post everything, all the time! I hate like-hunters, these people whom only post to get likes, and whom get disappointed if they don't get 'enough' likes from their connections. I just don't see the point.
Unless these persons are important to me, and I want to know what they are doing, I block their content, as I think it's kind of irritating that they are posting everything they encounter on the internet, every, useless, unimportant, thing. I don't want to be that type of person! I want to have some kind of distance to my media use, and every move I make on social media is usually thought of for some time, before actually getting posted. I'm trying to have a healthy relationship to my media use, even though this means I seem passive, and that others don't get a lot of information about me and what I do. As mentioned earlier I'm a 'freerider'; gaining the benefits from the media and others, not contributing to the greater 'good' (I really don't believe that there's a good in this, but for the sake of the saying, I use this term here..).

Actually what concerns me the most about being a heavy user for a day or two, is if others would recognize my sudden increased interactivity, or maybe the opposite, that it would be recognized at all, and that it would be a waste, for anyone other than the sake of this experiment? Maybe the overall thought related to this, my change in behavior, is connected to my feeling of being seen on social media? I don't have an urge for showing off, and telling others what I do, and don't need the recognition connected to this, and others commenting on my posts and thoughts. Some would believe this could be connected my fear of not getting any comments or recognition at all, I don't, because as mentioned I don't have this urge, and I see Facebook status updates and other media as something used to say my opinion, and not asking or posting stuff that I want response to, this is simply not how I see these types of media. I use it for other things as well, as chatting or getting information about people, but actually posting to get some kind of interaction is useless to me.

My fear of being seen by some as the person who without any particular reason starts posting stupid things, and commenting without any other reason than just doing it, is what is holding me back. I don't know if it would be healthy for me to try it, and get some kind of 'insight knowledge', but my fear for been seen this way is to high, I don't want to be this person..! I guess this is highly related to my need for managing my social media facade, and maintaining how 'I' is perceived by others on the internet. I don't think I'm doing a lot of maintenance, but this is some of the things I do, and prior to writing this, I really wasn't aware of it. It was more a thought of not showing off, and not having a need to interact this way, but actually it seems like a way for me to manage my facade, and instead of posting and doing stupid things, I do nothing at all. The question is, if it is better to do anything, even the slightest, than nothing?

søndag den 10. november 2013

Brain-dump #2

This post will be a short 'status'-update on my situation. Since last dump, I haven't even looked at my phone, which mean I don't even know whether there's additional new mail. I have placed my phone at the kitchen table, and there it have been sound asleep for the last couple of hours, no tones or anything. To be hones the thought that it could be dead have touched me. Along with this I got to think on something I find both interesting and frightening; the tracking of our social media use.
The thought came from my brain building scenarios for what would happen, if I kept getting messages (not that it have happened, but just to have some kind of 'plan' for what I would do), since I'm a heavy user of Apples iMessage system, other persons sending text-messages to me, will be able to see (provided that they also use iMessage), whether or not I've received the message, and even if I have read it! This means that people are unable to 'hide' and come up with an excuse for not responding to a given message. The same thing has recently been introduced to Facebook messages, where users are able to see if a message has been read, on what particular platform it was read on, and even the location when the recipient read the message! This kind of tracking is to me quite frightening. I'm aware of different services/apps that can provide others with my location, if I give these others the permission to do so, but at any moment I'm able to disable their accessibility to my location data. This is not an option using these two mentioned forms of communication, either you use the service provided as is, or you don't. This has led me to only use Facebook's messaging service in situations where there was no other option available. This is due the fact that I'm willing to show others if I've read the message (and I want to know if others have read the messages I've sent as well), as I find this option very useful, to both sender and recipient, which is also why I keep using iMessages. As for the location-part provided in Facebook's model, I really can't accept that way of displaying information, at least not, when they don't provide the opportunity to turn it on/off. In fact, they don't even tell the users that the option is enabled by default. I don't think users should have their location tracked in this way, and presented to others as a part of a messaging system, I really don't see the point. Not that I want to hide in any way from the people I interact with, but I don't think it is any of their business where I was, when i responded to or read their message - I just don't see the point.

We're tracking ourselves more than ever, and most of the tracking is used for personal purposes like calories, steps/movement and location for use in navigation. But the point of this information being shared, is weird to me. For the purpose of showing of a running route through RunKeeper or sharing a location to meet up, there is a purpose, both in messaging? Really? And this in a way sums up one of my main thoughts on this whole digital living/identity thing; purpose. I've mentioned my concerns regarding purpose previously, and have tried to be more focused on the purpose in my own use, and then I've started thinking about other kinds of purpose. I have, or at least strive to have, a purpose in my use, and unquestionably so does the service providers. It is no secret that Google makes a living of users searching habits, and Facebook users habits and likings, but I'm struggling to find a purpose for showing this particular information to other users? And where does it stop? Is there a purpose in making everything available to all user, all the time? I don't know, but I'm starting to think that the purposes behind these social media giant's actions, should be clear, and find it more important that they are clear to the users, at least prior to sharing and showing all these other types of information.

As a sidenote; the fast have been easier on me than expected, and I see no trouble in continuing my fast for the rest of the day. (Not said I would be able to do this for a longer period, but as of now, I'm fine with zero-use of internet and social media..)

Catching up!

After having fasted for a whole day there is obviously a lot of catching up to do! I checked my phone this morning, to see what I had been missing out on yesterday: 17 mails, 5 Tap-A-Talk (forum) notifications, 2 text messages, 2 Facebook notifications, 1 Twitter notification and 1 Snapchat. It sounds like a lot when written this way, but actually it surprises me, that it ins't more? I would have expected more mails and Facebook notifications, especially when yesterday was saturday! The sad thing is, that my disappointment didn't stop here, as i opened my email app, 9 of the received mails was spam (I have quite some trouble with this lately..), and only two of the remaining had actual and relevant content to be interesting enough to be read, and here I went all day hoping for something interesting to await my attention.. Pff.. Moving on to Facebook, the notifications received (I have Facebook set to only send notifications regarding friends put on my self-created Friend-list) was about one of my friends finally moving on to the real world, becoming a graduate-student (congrats Isak!) and a status-update asking if anybody was going out. Not really that interesting a night it seems.

The funny thing is, many of the thoughts running through my head while the fast was on, was really with no reason, I didn't miss out on anything (except the one text-message regarding a meeting next week, i needed to respond to, but not urgently), everything seemed to progress nicely without me knowing about it, and really, I had a great day, not being mentally pushed to check the media at all times. Of course I've been catching up today, to see what have happened, but to be honest, none of it really seemed interesting enough, and my morning-routine only lasted five minutes. Nothing popped out as important, interesting or relevant - It was more of a 'okay, moving on' kind of feeling.

I don't know how to interpret this at the moment, but I'm feeling that social media ins't as 'important' and relevant to be a part of, as I had thought prior to yesterday?

lørdag den 9. november 2013

Brain-dump #3

As a last thing before going to bed, I've decided to do a last brain-dump with my final thoughts on this day being 'disconnected'. Overall I think that everything went according to plan, if it is possible to have some kind of plan before going into a period of no internet and social media. By this, I men that I had hoped I wouldn't be tempted too much, and at some point be overwhelmed by the urge to check my phone, and see what had been going on in the 'lost' time. I can proudly say that I haven't checked my phone all day! To be honest it was really just the first couple of hours that was/felt, to some degree, the worst. After a couple of hours out of the routine, I really didn't think about checking the phone. I believe this has something to do, with the phone being out of reach, and thereby not tempting me with it's vibrations and notification-tones, but still, the feeling that I needed to check in, hasn't been present all night, even though it is saturday night! Personally I think that is some kind of achievement in itself.
The only time I felt left out in some way, was while I was watching Danish Music Awards, this live TV show had all kinds of references to social media, and some of the prizes was related to online and live voting, plus a lot of hashtags for Twitter and Instagram, providing 'backstage' access. These things were presented in a way, that made me feel like I was missing out on things, that everybody else was able to participate in, but without the different apps and internet access, I was 'stuck' with the 'regular' edition, and all the extras felt like premium subscriber-only content - And the worst part, I haven't even seen it, so I really don't know what I'm missing out on! All these feelings are connected purely to the talked presentation in the show. Maybe the content was bad, or uninteresting, I don't know, but I missed out, on what could have potentially have been awesome stuff? Or on the other hand, I didn't miss out on anything else, than bloatware, and uninteresting crap. I hope for the latter, even though I would have liked to jut have a glimpse..

Oh, and one last thing from this show; they handed out a prize for best 'Innovation', covering an artist's use of social media, to include and give fans an extraordinary experience! Social media really is everywhere nowadays.
By the way, the winner was Nik & Jay, provided snippets of songs from their new album, at certain 'hotspots' in Copenhagen, allowing users to listen through an app, designed for this particular stunt. Interesting approach, even though it doesn't sound that innovative and social media related to me..

Brain-dump #1

First brain-dump in my fast. The fast has been going on roughly since 7 o'clock this morning (this means 8 hours by now), and really hasn't effected me that much, or at least, that was what I thought prior to writing this.

Is stated earlier, I've chosen to go all-in, cutting all cords, and staying away from all internet-related activities throughout the day. I would have expected by now to have almost craving-like feelings towards checking Facebook and Twitter, but actually the thing that annoys me the most, is the non-checking of my mail. Right now I have nine unread messages (according to the small icon at my phone, when I need to check the time), and as a person who fights for keeping a zero-inbox this is kind of frustrating! It surprises me that I'm not that concerned about the actual content and senders of these messages, and have convinced myself that since it's weekend, it can probably easily wait a day or two, but my fight to keep the counter a almost none, is postponed and I'd wish I'd find the option to toggle this information off. This has led me to dig out a small case for my phone, in which it can be stored throughout the day, not showing me anything at all. Even though the push-notifications is disabled, the different counters are still showing, wanting me to get rid of them, and I find it quite tempting.. The phone is now tucked in, in the case, and I'm only going to take the phone out, if it starts ringing!
By now I could tell from the tone, that I have received a text-message from someone. I don't now whether I should check it, or just ignore it, but for the sake of this fast, I've chosen to let it sit. I don't know if I am able to keep it unread for the rest of the day, since the thought of it's 'maybe-importance' still takes up place inside my head.

During my previous tracking of my media use, I found that I didn't have a lot of purpose connected to my use, and this bothered me a little. Now, I have a brand new smartphone incoming (from Germany), and the last couple of days I've been tracking it like a mad. This is due the fact that it was posted on wednesday, and the tracking have been showing no movement, whatsoever since! I'm therefore eager to see it move closer to me, and I've been wanting to check for any news since I woke up. This my sound kind of silly, since I'm, as mentioned, aware of it being weekend, which should mean that the package shouldn't be moving anyway. Hopefully great things come to those who wait..

Another thought I had a couple of ours ago, was if I should allow myself to check-in on news-sites. I somehow feel responsible for keeping up to date with the things going on, in the world around me, and as with social media, I don't want to feel left out, of important stuff. I decided it would be okay, to do a quick head-line check on my iPad, and did so. It was quite disturbing. I was hoping for real world, and actual news, and the site I checked has the whole front page plastered with fridays proclaimed 'scandal' in Dancing With The Stars. After a quick glance, I decided this wasn't worth breaking out of the all-in thinking, and that if I wanted news, I should instead turn on the TV watching the news sometime in the evening, for the sake of actually getting informed of real and relevant news. Actually I felt stupid for checking, both for the sake of my fast, but also because of the content displayed, I felt like I was wasting my time with this kind of news, instead of using it on more valuable stuff. Realizing this, I think I'm going to ask my girlfriend if we should go for a walk without our phones, spending time outside 'off the grid'. 

fredag den 8. november 2013

All in!

When I first heard that we were going to do a (social) media fast, I was sceptical. I couldn't see how that possibly could be done in the world we live in, were our phones and media play such big parts in our lives. The thought of not being reachable and connected, is in my mind connected to the thought of being left alone on a deserted island! As mentioned previously I'm a 'free-rider' when it comes to social media, which means I really don't contribute a lot. I've come to the conclusion that this could be based in one of two things; either I find myself and what happens in my life too boring to share what is going on in with others, or that I'm very reluctant when it comes social media, and only feel that it should be used with a decent purpose. Especially the second option is highly contrasting with how I use social media, since the most of my time spent on social media, is related to just browsing and reading what happens in other people's lives and what generally is going on within different areas. One thing that strikes my mind is; how would the internet and especially social media be if there wasn't any free-riders like myself? Would it be too crazy and overwhelming if everyone started pouring every single thing they experienced into the social media. Or is the term free-rider open for interpretation? Basically social media wouldn't exist if nobody read what others posted, I'm still reading post, digesting them, and bringing them into my life, maybe sharing the information with others as a base of conversation with mutual friends, so even though I don't contribute, I'm using it in a different way, and maybe thereby actually contributing? Another thought relating to this is that when I don't throw around 'likes' and 'favorites' like they were halloween-candy, don't that just make my opinions more valuable, since they are so rare? Or could it be the other way around, that the decrease in value, since I'm so passive that my opinion really doesn't matter?
I really don't know where to begin, and definitely can't see where to stop, but I had to get these thoughts out there before my next topic; the fast!

We're all conducting a day of fasting, a day with no social media (free passes can be given), and throughout the day have to do some notes and thoughts on how it is going. For this occasion I've decided to go all-in, which means I'm cutting all cords to social media and temptations. I'll be starting tomorrow (saturday) when I wake up, and won't access the social media i usually frequent, until sunday. This means I've had to set up some groundrules for myself;

  • Tell my boss that I'm unreachable all saturday
  • Mail disabled on computer + smartphone
  • Disable all push-notifcations on my smarthphone
  • Unmuting my phone, and leaving it somewhere to be haerd in case anyone should call (I don't find calls to be within social media), contrary to carrying it in my pocket all day
  • Try to be as much away from computer as possible, to reduce temptation
As I'm going to do some brain-dumps throughout the day, I'll be using my computer occasionally, but I'll only have a document open for these, and not use the browser or really anything else on the computer - All-in!
Fortunately we are visiting my in-laws on the countryside this weekend, and hopefully this could be a fine opportunity to just let everything be, and focus on being social with the people around me. (On the other hand, I fear for not being able to take a break from everything, and know wether interesting is going on, while I'm there behaving nicely..)

I'll post my brain-dumps in readable editions on the blog, after finishing the fast.