I think this is definitely a generational thing, this author was born in 2001. The idea of a digital environment being as familiar as a home I think is a great illustration of how ingrained it is...
I think this is definitely a generational thing, this author was born in 2001. The idea of a digital environment being as familiar as a home I think is a great illustration of how ingrained it is for those who grew up with it. I wish the author went a bit more into the falsities of it all, but that is an endless rabbit hole to be fair.
Hah, I came straight to the comment section to say the same thing. Halfway through the article where he compared phone=home versus computer=work was an instant giveaway that the author was very...
Hah, I came straight to the comment section to say the same thing.
Halfway through the article where he compared phone=home versus computer=work was an instant giveaway that the author was very young.
The kind of relationship he has with his phone is the relationship techy millennials, and gen Xers had (have?) with their computers.
I use my phone as a tool in my pocket, nothing more. If it got destroyed, I'd get a new one and not miss this one, even if all of its settings went back to default.
When I sit down at my computer, it feels much more like coming home. There's more of a ritual involved, it's more immersive, I can do more engaging and entertaining things on it.
More importantly for me, my computer doesn't nag me every ten minutes because some horrible app decided I wasn't engaged enough.
Pretty much all of the domestic metaphors he cites in phones came from prior computing anyway. Unix had the concept of home directories long before anyone ever thought putting a computer many times more powerful than contemporary supercomputers in your pocket was possible.
I was gonna say, if their relation with their phone is similiar to mine with my computer, I find that incredibly sad. They can put up some art in their digital apartment if they don't put holes in...
I was gonna say, if their relation with their phone is similiar to mine with my computer, I find that incredibly sad.
They can put up some art in their digital apartment if they don't put holes in the wall. I can take a sledgehammer to the walls of my digital home and re-arrange the layout of all my rooms.
We invented tricorders and the companies that make them are determined to shove ads in our faces to convince us to spend more instead of changing the world.
What a surprisingly thought provoking and emotionally evocative piece. I don't think we are successfully brought to the conclusions in the post: "you are not domesticating your phone—it is trying...
What a surprisingly thought provoking and emotionally evocative piece. I don't think we are successfully brought to the conclusions in the post: "you are not domesticating your phone—it is trying to domesticate you". Especially because of the implication that this doesn't apply to Personal Computers in the same way for the author, because I have felt the opposite way. Maybe the points didn't land with me in the end because I was so caught up in my own thoughts and nostalgia. That said, the more I think about the metaphor, the more fraught it becomes. To the point where I think I am going to argue that the author is on to something on the surface, but either the general public seems to disagree with our desire to "occupy digital spaces" in this way, or the author is mislabeling the concept as "a house" while trying to describe something else.
I have always been enamored with Microsoft Bob. It was an experimental GUI that allowed you to decorate and arrange the rooms a "home" for your applications to live in, and for you to do your work in. It was release for Windows 3.1, 95 & NT by Microsoft in 1995. My brother and I installed it on our computer when it was released, and we spent countless hours setting up our "homes" and "rooms". That said, I don't remember actually doing anything productive in the program, but instead spending my time decorating, arranging, theming and interacting with character assistants (if I remember correctly my favorite was named Chaz, and was some strange looking creature that drank mugs of coffee all day long). In hindsight, I used it more as a proto-Sims than an actual "home" to arrange my digital workspace in. I personally think that was due to the limitations of the software. The creators decided that it was more important to maintain the metaphor than to get out of the way the user. This meant you couldn't run your favorite software from within the program. You couldn't effectively control Winamp from the interface. Emails were seemingly arbitrarily character constrained. Who could actually perform work efficiently like that? In the end the experiment was considered a failure and it was discontinued. The concept seems to have been outright rejected by users. I would argue that the poor sales, terrible reviews, and lack of engagement with Microsoft Bob was an indication that people simply don't want to think of their digital devices in this way. I honestly think that is still true. Since Bob, the closest thing I have experienced has been the Oculus (now Meta) "Immersive Home". I'm out of date, and I haven't been able to use VR in any meaningful way (being a middle aged parent with a career, who wears glasses and experiences motion sickness now). Are people actually interacting with this software in a meaningful way? I'm sure there are teenagers who have put countless hours into their personal spaces, just like I did with Bob at that age, but that doesn't mean the general public feels that way.
What even are homes, anyway? What differentiates living in a home against a long term residence in a hotel, or the lives of the residences of a shared home, like the characters painted by Downton Abbey? In the show, the Abbey doesn't appear to feel like any less of a home to the residents. The valet who lives on site has made it as much his home as the Earl of Grantham does, despite it also being his job. That said, being the Earl of Grantham is just as much Robert Crawley's job while he lives in the Abbey. The author of the article evokes memories of going down the stairs of his home at night and avoiding the step he learned is creaky. But like he said, he is avoiding the creaky step because it would wake his family. Ultimately, I think that's the feeling of "home" that the author is chasing, and not the intimate knowledge he has of the actual building or space. What gives that space meaning to us are the people that occupy it, the people that clean it, the people that decorate it and live in it with us daily. While that space we grew up in was our first home as children, I think it's important to recognize that while we lived there with our parents, that space was just as much a house to them as it was the place where they have the "job" of being mom, dad, chef, shopper, clothes washer, etc. I think the part that is most easily being provided by software is simplifying those tasks. Our digital desktops can be sorted alphabetically at the touch of a button. The trash can be emptied without getting up. We can have a clear desk to work on in an instant, without loosing the clutter of the workspace we are writing our paper on. But we also struggle to hold that many "rooms" in our memory and retain our muscle memory of working in them. The less time we have to interact with them, the more true that becomes. An we seem to have so much less free time year after year as the means of constant communication break down further and further.
If we extend the metaphor this far, then maybe we could using the metaphor to improve software. I always imagine this library in my mind when I think about working in a digital space: shelves filled with every leather bound book I could desire, a comfortable arm chair, a small desk clear of clutter, one of those green shaded lambs providing warm light to work under, comfortable and ornate area rugs, wood flooring, a warm fire. Most of us don't have those spaces in our home, don't have the time, money, or free space to create them. So why is that the image that is evoked for me, when I have never had it and ultimately could never have it in my personal life? Is there a way for our phone to be that clean library, with a clear desk, and any time we pick it up it is just like we like it? Can we somehow get the feeling evoked by our mother putting our clean clothes in our drawers for us every week without her having to wash it, dry it, fold it and put it all away? I honestly just don't know.
I feel that the phone:house metaphor is kinda labored. Many apps, like dating apps, are not private rooms: they're public spaces. Dating apps are like bars. We're not meeting strangers in our...
I feel that the phone:house metaphor is kinda labored.
As I move between apps on my phone, I notice a vague emotion that I am entering different rooms, each with its own character. The settings app is the basement; the dating apps are the bedroom. No matter where I go, though, there is that coziness of being in a nook. This is my corner of the world; I am free to do what I want. I can let my mind relax, for I am safe and secure from the vast, terrifying world.
Of course, phones only give us the illusion of privacy and control. If apps are rooms, then every room in your house has someone peeking through the blinds. And you might be able to customize your experience to some degree, but automatic updates are a reminder that you don’t really have agency over your cute little space.
Many apps, like dating apps, are not private rooms: they're public spaces. Dating apps are like bars. We're not meeting strangers in our bedrooms. We can bring strangers from the bar to our bedrooms, however.
We can't expect privacy in public spaces. Bars have bouncers and rules: if we get inappropriate, other people can report us and get us bounced.
Does anyone remember the brief years when "homing from work" was a thing? Back when our personal lives were on desktops and not phones and the cloud. I used to be SSH home and browse bash.org.
Does anyone remember the brief years when "homing from work" was a thing? Back when our personal lives were on desktops and not phones and the cloud. I used to be SSH home and browse bash.org.
I think this is definitely a generational thing, this author was born in 2001. The idea of a digital environment being as familiar as a home I think is a great illustration of how ingrained it is for those who grew up with it. I wish the author went a bit more into the falsities of it all, but that is an endless rabbit hole to be fair.
Hah, I came straight to the comment section to say the same thing.
Halfway through the article where he compared phone=home versus computer=work was an instant giveaway that the author was very young.
The kind of relationship he has with his phone is the relationship techy millennials, and gen Xers had (have?) with their computers.
I use my phone as a tool in my pocket, nothing more. If it got destroyed, I'd get a new one and not miss this one, even if all of its settings went back to default.
When I sit down at my computer, it feels much more like coming home. There's more of a ritual involved, it's more immersive, I can do more engaging and entertaining things on it.
More importantly for me, my computer doesn't nag me every ten minutes because some horrible app decided I wasn't engaged enough.
Pretty much all of the domestic metaphors he cites in phones came from prior computing anyway. Unix had the concept of home directories long before anyone ever thought putting a computer many times more powerful than contemporary supercomputers in your pocket was possible.
I was gonna say, if their relation with their phone is similiar to mine with my computer, I find that incredibly sad.
They can put up some art in their digital apartment if they don't put holes in the wall. I can take a sledgehammer to the walls of my digital home and re-arrange the layout of all my rooms.
We invented tricorders and the companies that make them are determined to shove ads in our faces to convince us to spend more instead of changing the world.
What a surprisingly thought provoking and emotionally evocative piece. I don't think we are successfully brought to the conclusions in the post: "you are not domesticating your phone—it is trying to domesticate you". Especially because of the implication that this doesn't apply to Personal Computers in the same way for the author, because I have felt the opposite way. Maybe the points didn't land with me in the end because I was so caught up in my own thoughts and nostalgia. That said, the more I think about the metaphor, the more fraught it becomes. To the point where I think I am going to argue that the author is on to something on the surface, but either the general public seems to disagree with our desire to "occupy digital spaces" in this way, or the author is mislabeling the concept as "a house" while trying to describe something else.
I have always been enamored with Microsoft Bob. It was an experimental GUI that allowed you to decorate and arrange the rooms a "home" for your applications to live in, and for you to do your work in. It was release for Windows 3.1, 95 & NT by Microsoft in 1995. My brother and I installed it on our computer when it was released, and we spent countless hours setting up our "homes" and "rooms". That said, I don't remember actually doing anything productive in the program, but instead spending my time decorating, arranging, theming and interacting with character assistants (if I remember correctly my favorite was named Chaz, and was some strange looking creature that drank mugs of coffee all day long). In hindsight, I used it more as a proto-Sims than an actual "home" to arrange my digital workspace in. I personally think that was due to the limitations of the software. The creators decided that it was more important to maintain the metaphor than to get out of the way the user. This meant you couldn't run your favorite software from within the program. You couldn't effectively control Winamp from the interface. Emails were seemingly arbitrarily character constrained. Who could actually perform work efficiently like that? In the end the experiment was considered a failure and it was discontinued. The concept seems to have been outright rejected by users. I would argue that the poor sales, terrible reviews, and lack of engagement with Microsoft Bob was an indication that people simply don't want to think of their digital devices in this way. I honestly think that is still true. Since Bob, the closest thing I have experienced has been the Oculus (now Meta) "Immersive Home". I'm out of date, and I haven't been able to use VR in any meaningful way (being a middle aged parent with a career, who wears glasses and experiences motion sickness now). Are people actually interacting with this software in a meaningful way? I'm sure there are teenagers who have put countless hours into their personal spaces, just like I did with Bob at that age, but that doesn't mean the general public feels that way.
What even are homes, anyway? What differentiates living in a home against a long term residence in a hotel, or the lives of the residences of a shared home, like the characters painted by Downton Abbey? In the show, the Abbey doesn't appear to feel like any less of a home to the residents. The valet who lives on site has made it as much his home as the Earl of Grantham does, despite it also being his job. That said, being the Earl of Grantham is just as much Robert Crawley's job while he lives in the Abbey. The author of the article evokes memories of going down the stairs of his home at night and avoiding the step he learned is creaky. But like he said, he is avoiding the creaky step because it would wake his family. Ultimately, I think that's the feeling of "home" that the author is chasing, and not the intimate knowledge he has of the actual building or space. What gives that space meaning to us are the people that occupy it, the people that clean it, the people that decorate it and live in it with us daily. While that space we grew up in was our first home as children, I think it's important to recognize that while we lived there with our parents, that space was just as much a house to them as it was the place where they have the "job" of being mom, dad, chef, shopper, clothes washer, etc. I think the part that is most easily being provided by software is simplifying those tasks. Our digital desktops can be sorted alphabetically at the touch of a button. The trash can be emptied without getting up. We can have a clear desk to work on in an instant, without loosing the clutter of the workspace we are writing our paper on. But we also struggle to hold that many "rooms" in our memory and retain our muscle memory of working in them. The less time we have to interact with them, the more true that becomes. An we seem to have so much less free time year after year as the means of constant communication break down further and further.
If we extend the metaphor this far, then maybe we could using the metaphor to improve software. I always imagine this library in my mind when I think about working in a digital space: shelves filled with every leather bound book I could desire, a comfortable arm chair, a small desk clear of clutter, one of those green shaded lambs providing warm light to work under, comfortable and ornate area rugs, wood flooring, a warm fire. Most of us don't have those spaces in our home, don't have the time, money, or free space to create them. So why is that the image that is evoked for me, when I have never had it and ultimately could never have it in my personal life? Is there a way for our phone to be that clean library, with a clear desk, and any time we pick it up it is just like we like it? Can we somehow get the feeling evoked by our mother putting our clean clothes in our drawers for us every week without her having to wash it, dry it, fold it and put it all away? I honestly just don't know.
Uh... Can't really relate. I get their point but the whole thing sounds kind of subjective
I feel that the phone:house metaphor is kinda labored.
Many apps, like dating apps, are not private rooms: they're public spaces. Dating apps are like bars. We're not meeting strangers in our bedrooms. We can bring strangers from the bar to our bedrooms, however.
We can't expect privacy in public spaces. Bars have bouncers and rules: if we get inappropriate, other people can report us and get us bounced.
Does anyone remember the brief years when "homing from work" was a thing? Back when our personal lives were on desktops and not phones and the cloud. I used to be SSH home and browse bash.org.