“Siri, How hot will it be today in Atlanta, GA?” Automatically, a calm, monotone voice replies to my mundane question: “Hayley, it will be 88 degrees in Atlanta, Georgia, on Sunday, October 1st.” “Alexa, play The Beatles song “Here Comes the Sun”. Seconds later, a soft hum begins to pour out of a tiny round, black gadget that houses only two or three slightly indented buttons embedded on it. How do these tiny, interactive gadgets operate? Janet Murray, a prominent theorist, claims that any successful piece of technology must incorporate her four affordances; the program must be “procedural”, “participatory”, “encyclopedic” and/or “spatial.” (“Inventing the Medium”) The first gadget to incorporate all of these affordances was the computer. Within the computer, there lived a program named “Eliza.” “Eliza” was the first of her kind, as she encompassed all of Murray’s four affordances, and “Eliza” revolutionized how technologically advanced computer systems would be discussed thereafter.
“Eliza”, created by Joe Weizenbaum, was one of the first interactive computer programs to ever be created. Originally, “Eliza” was mistaken for a physical human. “Eliza was experienced as real, even though there were no images or sound track to reinforce the illusion. The program played the role of a nondirective psychotherapist responding to free text input into a Teletype terminal. Eliza had no understanding of what was said to her, but looked-for keywords like ‘depressed’ and ‘mother’ and applied cleverly formatted rules of response, including the use of simple grammatical inversions to echo back statements,” (“Inventing the Medium”, Pg. 51.) Eliza, the innovative computer-generated program, tricked interactors into believing she was a real human by replying, at times, with inappropriate remarks. “She was animated by the power of her procedural design, by the ingenuity of the rules of behavior that determined her reactions to novel input,” (“Inventing the Medium,” Pg. 52.) Although, at times “Eliza” was believed to be a human living behind a screen, she was simply comprised of electronic components. The renowned author, Janet Murray, theorized that “everything mad of electronic bits is potentially “procedural,” “participatory”, “encyclopedic”, and/or “spatial.” (“Four Affordances”) As “Eliza” was the first of her kind to prove all four of Murray’s four affordances as accurate, I hypothesize that “Eliza” was the first voice-command based gadget to pave the way for other interactive gadgets to become a part of everyday life, especially today, in 2017. Since “Eliza”, Apple introduced Siri, a voice-command based Operating System, which can be accessed via any Apple device, and Amazon’s similar voice-command based gadget, Alexa. Janet Murray intended for these four affordances to “…Make up the designer’s palette for representation in any digital format or genre. Inventing the Medium offers a methodology and principles of design for the collective effort of maximizing the expressive power of each of these affordances.” (“Inventing the Medium”) To simplify, Murray describes “procedural” as “composed of executable rules”; “participatory” as “inviting human action and manipulation of the represented world”; “encyclopedic” as “containing very high capacity of information in multiple media formats”; and finally, “spatial” as “navigable as an information repository and/or a virtual place.” (“Four Affordances.”) In part one, chapter two of Inventing the Medium: Principles of Interaction Design as a Cultural Practice, Murray explains how a computer-like gadget fits into all of these differing categories. To begin, Murray’s “procedural property” can be defined as, “the ability to represent and execute conditional behaviors.” Piggy-backing off of this theory, the “interactive property” states that communication between a human and a computer is the equivalent as how a human would speak with another human. “Eliza” was considered “interactive” as she exchanged dialogue with humans when an individual would ask her questions, make remarks to her, or command a task from her. “As I have argued elsewhere, one of the most striking early signs that the computer was a new expressive medium was Joe Weizenbaum’s, “Eliza”, an interactive program that was widely mistake for an actual person (“Inventing the Medium”, box 2.1) “Eliza” was also spotlighted as she was considered a “participatory medium.” Eliza can be classified as “participatory”, as for her to function properly, a human must physically awaken her programming and partake in conversation, or interact with her to receive necessary information or to enhance a human’s daily experience. Janet Murray claims, “Participation in digital media increasingly means social participation [as well.]” (“Inventing the Medium”) Weizenbaum did not script Eliza, but he claims, “By framing [this] experiment in natural language processing as the highly conventionalized and familiar scenario of a therapy session, [I] am also scripting the interactor.” Due to Eliza’s particular way of programming, this revolutionary computer software can provide “one-to-one communication” and “one-to-many” communication, especially while utilizing the internet access via “Eliza”. (“Inventing the Medium”) Murray’s term “usability” also describes “Eliza” in regard to her “participatory” functioning as her “usability” enhances her connection with humans in a particular way. “Eliza” can be described as an “encyclopedic medium,” as her grander computer software was the most spacious and intelligent medium created thus far. “The computer can contain and transmit more information than humanly accessible form than all previous media combined.” (“Inventing the Medium”) This aspect of “Eliza” is paramount as it minimized ambiguity and maximized accessibility between humans and computer software.” (“Inventing the Medium”) Lastly, “Eliza” can considered a “spatial medium” as she housed information within her computer-generated system and regurgitated said information, as needed. Here, “spatial medium” can be defined as, “[A system which] is navigable as an information repository and/or a virtual place.” Although Eliza was created as a voice-command based system, which resided within a virtual place, she is the prime example of an information dispenser; humans would command her to verbally seek out information as needed. Murray’s, Inventing the Medium: Principles of Interaction Design as a Cultural Practice, concludes, “The spatial affordance of the computer does not rest on its ability to present us with images of real-world spaces: for example, we perceive web pages as occupying “sites” that we “visit.” … “Because we are attuned to the spatial characteristics of digital environments, users assume that spatial positioning is meaningful and related to function.” (“Inventing the Medium”) To say, “Eliza” was a transformation gadget imbedded within the computer would simply be an understatement. “Eliza” was a system which not only encompassed all of Janet Murray’s four affordances: “procedural,” “participatory”, “encyclopedic”, and “spatial,” but she also paved the way for 2017’s voice-command based operating systems, Siri and Alexa. These gadget, although they appear to be limited in space, are not limited in time or knowledge, as Siri and Alexa also encompass aspects of being “procedural”, “participatory”, “encyclopedic” and “spatial.” They also change the way we live day-to-day, as did “Eliza.” (1,115 Words.) Bibliography: Murray, Janet. “Inventing the Medium Principles of Interaction Design as a Cultural Practice // Inventing the Medium,” Janet H. Murray, 2011, Emory Libraries and Information Technology, Online Access. http://discovere.emory.edu/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=01EMORY_ALMA51308531050002486&indx=1&recIds=01EMORY_ALMA51308531050002486&recIdxs=0&elementId=0&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&frbg=&&dscnt=0&scp.scps=scope%3A%28repo%29%2Cscope%3A%2801EMORY_ALMA%29%2CEmory_PrimoThirdNode&tb=t&vl(38512462UI1)=all_items&vid=discovere&mode=Basic&srt=rank&tab=emory_catalog&dum=true&vl(freeText0)=janet%20murray%20inventing%20the%20medium&dstmp=1506977264515 Murray, Janet. “Four Affordances.” Janet H. Murray, 19 Nov. 2011, www. inventingthemedium.com/four-affordances.com
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Almost daily, my friends call me a “grandma.” Am I an outcast, a weirdo or a grandma because I have not conformed entirely to my generation’s ways of using technology in everyday life? In my opinion, they call me a “grandma” because they know I would innately prefer to be outside or hike rather than opting to sit inside and FaceTime a friend who is within a block distance from me -- this is due to my complicated relationship with technology and my gadgets. To me, the majority of my technology, including the social media applications I use (predominantly Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat) provokes more negative feelings and anxiety than invokes happiness. After attempting to justify the reasons why I do not enjoy spending the majority of my time on these applications, I still find myself feeling like the communal outcast, and because of this, I then retreat back to confirming to the status quo by constantly checking and maintaining popular social platforms. But is this a problem which resides inherently within me, or is this a grander, societal problem that I am carrying the weight on my shoulders? In this personal essay, I hope to highlight the pros and cons of having such a close and tight-knit relationship with my white, iPhone 7, although I despise spending so much time tending to my gadget. To furthermore, within the past few years, my eyes and fingertips especially, have been glued to my phone, as I was in a long distance relationship for over two years (my boyfriend now lives in Atlanta!) Therefore, I hope this personal essay can bring to light how addictive (physically and sociologically) the vibrations, screens and beeps from our phones truly are. On the other hand, I hope to play devil’s advocate for a situation such as mine; I feel it is only fair brag that if communication is properly maintained (with a lot of trust), it can make any long-distance friendship or relationship not only last, but also thrive. My alarm is on my phone, so naturally, my phone is the first thing I touch when I wake up in the morning; it is also the last thing I look at before I go to bed. Furthermore, my phone charges on my nightstand, not even an arm’s distance away from my bed. Routinely, after I snooze my alarm, I check my text messages, my emails, my calendar, the weather, my social media applications, the news, etc. Not only does this practice occupy a good few minutes of my morning, but it also reveals how dependable I am upon my gadget to receive basic information such as the temperature, my schedule, my reminders, and the directions to take me to my next location. To further my dependable personal relationship with my phone, as stated above, since recently, I was in a two-year long distance relationship, where our main form of communication was through our iPhone’s: iMessaging and FaceTiming. Due to these circumstances, my iPhone has created a dichotomy within my social world -- for me to have communicated with my boyfriend, I had to (and I would want to) be fixed to my screen so I could feel his “love” from across the country. On the other hand, I would still try to maintain and upkeep all of my academic life and social relations in Atlanta, phone in hand. William Merrin’s article “The Rise of the Gadget and Hyperludic Me-dia” states: “While the reach of mass media into the lives of individuals was once limited, we now carry our own personal means of noncommunication everywhere. In their instant availability, the time and attention they take, the physical incorporation they produce, and our connected disconnection from the world, digital gadgets massively extend the mass media’s abolition of real experience, relations, and communication. Increasingly, on a physical level, our bodies and minds are simply elsewhere.” Here, Merrin, pinpoints my thoughts. He claims and proves that not only was I not present, but I become dependent on my phone to become instantly satisfied via my technological devices. Although, while I was receiving this signal of dopamine via my “gadget”, I was also being taken away from my immediate surroundings and conversations, etc. Similarly, In Jaron Lanier’s article, “You are Not a Gadget”, contrary to the title of this article, Lanier states, “We [technicians, such as Steve Jobs, and new forms of technology] make up extensions to your being, like remote eyes and ears (web-cams and mobile phones) and expanded memory (the world of details you can search for online). These become the structures by which you connect to the world and other people. These structures in turn can change how you conceive of yourself and the world. We [technologie creators] tinker with your philosophy by direct manipulation of your cognitive experience, not indirectly, [but] through argument.” Post personal investigation, I conclude that in my past, I have have physically and emotionally relied on my gadget -- literally and figuratively, I would have felt lost, incomplete and unhappy without it. In hindsight, I can now recall that I experienced this “indirect manipulation” from my technology. As I am no longer in a long-distance relationship, as I have studied my interaction with my technology and after taking time to digest my prior circumstances, I have now come to the conclusion that my phone, made me feel present with the people farthest away from me (at the time my boyfriend was living in Los Angeles and Portland), although it took me out of the presence of my companions and obligations, at school. But, while I was on the phone (or waiting for my phone to vibrate), I was happy. As soon as I witnessed my screen light up, felt a vibration or heard a “beep”, I thought, perhaps, it was my boyfriend contacting me and even that possible thought transmitted a dopamine rush to my brain. This proves that not only had I become solely reliant on those small rushes stemming from my technological gadget, but it also shows that I was never fully living and consciously living in the present.
Do I owe our relationship all to technology? Not at all, but because of technology we made our relationship thrive, even when we were not in the same state. I also do not want appear naive and claim it was all “easy.” For example, there would be times, when communicating via technology made situations even worse. How am I supposed to know that a period was not supposed to be mean? How am I supposed to interpret his tone of voice via a screen? What if I just wanted to speak face to face? To conclude, I also want to play devil’s advocate, as due to the fact that my boyfriend and I maintained such a strong sense of communication, whether it was via iMessage, Instagram tags, Facebook Messenger, FaceTime or over the phone, we always managed to remain in each other’s lives and that is not something that I would ever change -- even if it meant regaining the hours I spent waiting for my phone to buzz or living vicariously via my technology. (1205 Words.) |
Hayley AlperinSenior at Emory University, Media Studies major, Archives |
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