Mobile devices as intimate technology and technology of intimacy
Author(s): Guillaume Latzko-Toth – Last updated: 02/13/2011
Introduction
The main idea is that “mobile” is different from “portable”. The goal of this paper is to explore, empirically and theoretically, what the difference is, and what it implies. [This is an interesting and I think important point, but not one that will be easy to tease out! There could be value in pulling together literature on what had been considered mobile media in the past (transistor radio, portable record player, even the novel) to see what the common threads there are, since, I believe, it was not until the car radio that mobility came to be more associated with media than portability alone.] Our first hypothesis is that people are engaged in an “intimate” relationship with mobile devices. Our second hypothesis is that not only are mobile devices “intimate technologies” (partners of our lives), but that they also contribute to reconfigure the ways intimacy is performed (the praxis of intimacy), i.e. they are “technologies of intimacy”. The notion of intimacy will be explored along three dimensions: proximity, contact, and privacy.
Note on what we call “mobile devices”: our proposed definition encompasses a class of portable digital information and communication devices that are actually (not just potentially) worn on the body or kept very close to it (i.e.: excluding laptops and netbooks but including tablets light and small enough to be carried by the owner on her/him). We could add an another characteristics: versatility, but it is increasingly subsumed under the adjective “digital”, since the latter is now practically always associated with computing/programming capabilities, the essence of which being versatility (the idea is at the heart of the definition of the digital computer, the universal machine). In other words, in this paper we won’t consider closed, function-specific devices like handheld GPS, digital cameras and audio recorders, or leasure cardiovascular monitors, but an e-reader (ex: Kindle) can be included in the definition since it offers an (expandable) range of features not just related to one specific function. A typical mobile device is considered versatile when it can receive “apps”.
I. Proximity
MDs are close to us. Always with us, on us, which provides new affordances (we always have access to them, to the services and informations they deliver, and to the people that we can reach and communicate with through them) but also new social responsibilities (literally, we are expected to “respond” in a timely manner). [I think you'll need to define mobile devices - would it include the Kindle and GPS for instance?] We can be “away from keyboard” (i.e.: computer) but can’t serve the same excuse with a mobile device, even though it’s different when we are at home: it is where we are probably the least physically close to our MDs. However, this apparent paradox can be resolved by the fact that “home” is precisely enclosed in, and (usually) defines our sphere of intimacy. [To this I would say: It depends. For teenagers a car might be a more intimate sphere than home. For present day 'road warriors' who travel a lot on business, a particular hotel or airport may be an intimate sphere, etc. Home is a bit of a loaded term that brings with it a lot of baggage.] But MDs are also “technologies of proximity”, not only in that they keep us close to each other through different social times and spatio-temporal settings (for instance, thanks to text messaging one can still have daily conversations with a close friend, even when one is hanging out in a bar in Chicago and the other is doing a safari in Tanzania), but also because they are location-based, “filling” the user’s immediate surroundings (Alfred Schutz’s Umwelt) with a richer social experience (thanks to applications that allow users to “discover” fellow users around them, or that enhance their perception of their environment–augmented reality).
II. Contact
The sensorial experience of interaction with mobile devices (MDs) is qualitatively different from earlier information & communication technologies (ICTs). MDs touch us (ex: they are close to the skin, they vibrate, hence interact with us in a haptic way) and we are touching them more frequently, more “directly” (cf. Steve’s reflections)(there is probably something to be said here about use of the word "tap," too, since we use it in English to mean that we "tap into something" and to "tap on the shoulder"), and in more elaborate ways (“gestures”) than we ever did with phones, computers or media receivers before (except the pocket book maybe, which still serves as a referent for many MDs). There is even a sensuous aspect in the way we interact with them, right from the act of purchase where “look ‘n feel” experience is crucial in the decision, but also later on, when we literally “dress” them in “skins”, fabric sleeves looking like clothes (“socks”), etc. But MDs are also “technologies of contact”, in the sense that they help us maintain a permanent (virtual, mediated) contact with our so-called social “contacts” and loved ones. This is not merely "proximity" like in the previous section, but an extension of the tactile sense through a chain of non-human actants: when the phone vibrates to announce an incoming message, is it just a "human-machine" physical interaction, or a physical interaction between two people, mediated by an artifact? (It would also be worthwhile to consider the degree to which voice is becoming important, initially in GPS devices but increasingly in smartphones, especially Android ones.)
III. Privacy
An important dimension of intimacy is privacy, more specifically: the ability to keep some activities (be they “social” or not) unseen (and unheard) by those we don’t want to be part of the “audience” (if there should be one). Empirical research on cell phone uses has shown that MDs provide unique opportunites regarding privacy, which explains why for some groups of users (typically younger users), text is the primary modality of communication: it is very discrete, and can’t be easily intercepted by people around the user. Recent MDs bring a new type of screen in the ecology of screen media. Because it has to be worn (by definition), these displays are small or subjective (glasses-mounted displays, still at an experimental stage). Consequently they are inherently more private than a fixed, large display typically attached to a larger computer. However this doesn’t mean that they can’t be shared, but it’s easier for the user to select the audience she wants to share it with. The mobile device can even contribute to redefine the private sphere by making it “portable”: users routinely create “ad hoc”, temporary micro private spheres around a (temporarily) shared mobile device–just like we temporarily invite friends and strangers in our home or in a room. In that sense, MDs contribute to transform any place into a private place. But they also blur the boundary between the two spheres, in sometimes dramatic ways. For instance, when a content deemed private (and addressed to a specific person or produced in a private context) is shared socially (the typical example being the practice of “sexting”–the exchange of explicit personal pictures or videos–which may have traumatic consequences when one of the interactants breaks the privacy “contract”).
Conclusions
[I think the most interesting angle here is the notion of intimacy, and I will hope you develop it in detail in the conclusion.]
Mobile devices as intimate technology and technology of intimacy
Author(s): Guillaume Latzko-Toth – Last updated: 02/13/2011
Introduction
The main idea is that “mobile” is different from “portable”. The goal of this paper is to explore, empirically and theoretically, what the difference is, and what it implies. [This is an interesting and I think important point, but not one that will be easy to tease out! There could be value in pulling together literature on what had been considered mobile media in the past (transistor radio, portable record player, even the novel) to see what the common threads there are, since, I believe, it was not until the car radio that mobility came to be more associated with media than portability alone.] Our first hypothesis is that people are engaged in an “intimate” relationship with mobile devices. Our second hypothesis is that not only are mobile devices “intimate technologies” (partners of our lives), but that they also contribute to reconfigure the ways intimacy is performed (the praxis of intimacy), i.e. they are “technologies of intimacy”. The notion of intimacy will be explored along three dimensions: proximity, contact, and privacy.Note on what we call “mobile devices”: our proposed definition encompasses a class of portable digital information and communication devices that are actually (not just potentially) worn on the body or kept very close to it (i.e.: excluding laptops and netbooks but including tablets light and small enough to be carried by the owner on her/him). We could add an another characteristics: versatility, but it is increasingly subsumed under the adjective “digital”, since the latter is now practically always associated with computing/programming capabilities, the essence of which being versatility (the idea is at the heart of the definition of the digital computer, the universal machine). In other words, in this paper we won’t consider closed, function-specific devices like handheld GPS, digital cameras and audio recorders, or leasure cardiovascular monitors, but an e-reader (ex: Kindle) can be included in the definition since it offers an (expandable) range of features not just related to one specific function. A typical mobile device is considered versatile when it can receive “apps”.
I. Proximity
MDs are close to us. Always with us, on us, which provides new affordances (we always have access to them, to the services and informations they deliver, and to the people that we can reach and communicate with through them) but also new social responsibilities (literally, we are expected to “respond” in a timely manner). [I think you'll need to define mobile devices - would it include the Kindle and GPS for instance?] We can be “away from keyboard” (i.e.: computer) but can’t serve the same excuse with a mobile device, even though it’s different when we are at home: it is where we are probably the least physically close to our MDs. However, this apparent paradox can be resolved by the fact that “home” is precisely enclosed in, and (usually) defines our sphere of intimacy. [To this I would say: It depends. For teenagers a car might be a more intimate sphere than home. For present day 'road warriors' who travel a lot on business, a particular hotel or airport may be an intimate sphere, etc. Home is a bit of a loaded term that brings with it a lot of baggage.] But MDs are also “technologies of proximity”, not only in that they keep us close to each other through different social times and spatio-temporal settings (for instance, thanks to text messaging one can still have daily conversations with a close friend, even when one is hanging out in a bar in Chicago and the other is doing a safari in Tanzania), but also because they are location-based, “filling” the user’s immediate surroundings (Alfred Schutz’s Umwelt) with a richer social experience (thanks to applications that allow users to “discover” fellow users around them, or that enhance their perception of their environment–augmented reality).II. Contact
The sensorial experience of interaction with mobile devices (MDs) is qualitatively different from earlier information & communication technologies (ICTs). MDs touch us (ex: they are close to the skin, they vibrate, hence interact with us in a haptic way) and we are touching them more frequently, more “directly” (cf. Steve’s reflections)(there is probably something to be said here about use of the word "tap," too, since we use it in English to mean that we "tap into something" and to "tap on the shoulder"), and in more elaborate ways (“gestures”) than we ever did with phones, computers or media receivers before (except the pocket book maybe, which still serves as a referent for many MDs). There is even a sensuous aspect in the way we interact with them, right from the act of purchase where “look ‘n feel” experience is crucial in the decision, but also later on, when we literally “dress” them in “skins”, fabric sleeves looking like clothes (“socks”), etc. But MDs are also “technologies of contact”, in the sense that they help us maintain a permanent (virtual, mediated) contact with our so-called social “contacts” and loved ones. This is not merely "proximity" like in the previous section, but an extension of the tactile sense through a chain of non-human actants: when the phone vibrates to announce an incoming message, is it just a "human-machine" physical interaction, or a physical interaction between two people, mediated by an artifact? (It would also be worthwhile to consider the degree to which voice is becoming important, initially in GPS devices but increasingly in smartphones, especially Android ones.)III. Privacy
An important dimension of intimacy is privacy, more specifically: the ability to keep some activities (be they “social” or not) unseen (and unheard) by those we don’t want to be part of the “audience” (if there should be one). Empirical research on cell phone uses has shown that MDs provide unique opportunites regarding privacy, which explains why for some groups of users (typically younger users), text is the primary modality of communication: it is very discrete, and can’t be easily intercepted by people around the user. Recent MDs bring a new type of screen in the ecology of screen media. Because it has to be worn (by definition), these displays are small or subjective (glasses-mounted displays, still at an experimental stage). Consequently they are inherently more private than a fixed, large display typically attached to a larger computer. However this doesn’t mean that they can’t be shared, but it’s easier for the user to select the audience she wants to share it with. The mobile device can even contribute to redefine the private sphere by making it “portable”: users routinely create “ad hoc”, temporary micro private spheres around a (temporarily) shared mobile device–just like we temporarily invite friends and strangers in our home or in a room. In that sense, MDs contribute to transform any place into a private place. But they also blur the boundary between the two spheres, in sometimes dramatic ways. For instance, when a content deemed private (and addressed to a specific person or produced in a private context) is shared socially (the typical example being the practice of “sexting”–the exchange of explicit personal pictures or videos–which may have traumatic consequences when one of the interactants breaks the privacy “contract”).Conclusions
[I think the most interesting angle here is the notion of intimacy, and I will hope you develop it in detail in the conclusion.]References