Sounds like SXSW needs a Nannybot! :-) A couple thoughts from a design POV:
a) culturally (and perhaps more true for the younger generation of today's "tweens" or Gen Y+ who literally never knew a life before mobile devices, like, seriously) it seems there's a willing acceptance by those who do this stuff, to place yourself into a state of ongoing "distraction and dispersion" (as John Dewey would say), as some twisted evolution of "multitasking" with multiple devices and comm exchanges simultaneously, but to those not used to it comes out as a series of inchoate, malformed, inconclusive communication moments... b) which is rude and inconsiderate, and anti-humanistic as a "design value": such usage negates any dignity and respect for the other person trying to speak and communicate and have a dialogue with you. The device becomes interfering, not mediating. Malcolm McCullough's Digital Ground goes into this a bit, as does Richard Lanham's Economics of Human Attention (and related essay in The Electronic Word). All those wonderful ethical/social challenges of pervasive computing or ubi-comp--meshing culture, place, technology, communication, with humanistic values of balance and respect. -uday On Mar 17, 2008, at 2:44 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote: > So, not sure how many of you tracked the Zuckerberg keynote last week > at SXSW, but while I was there in Austin, an odd thing happened. > > It seemed to me to be the first time I saw Twitter used in a way that > had a negative impact. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but the > anger of the crowd at Zuckerberg's keynote interview seemed to be > fueled further by the fact people were venting in Twitter at the same > time. In this instance, Twitter seemed to be like pouring gasoline on > a fire, making the reaction to a poor interview far worse than it was > in reality. > > (IMHO of course.) > > Further, I have to say... the whole use of Twitter and mobile devices > at the conference really depressed me. It seemed like every ten > seconds no matter who you were with, they all kept looking down at > their iPhones and basically taking themselves out of whatever was > going on. I know I'm becoming a Luddite and all, but honestly... put > down the damn iPhone, Blackberry or whatever it is you use already! > It's really becoming beyond annoying. > > Getting too old before my time I guess. > > -- > Andrei Herasimchuk ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
