Technology is supposed to work for people. From the lever to the Internet, toolsdesigned by people have saved us time and energy and allowed us to accomplishthings that were impractical or completely impossible before. While notechnology is without its downsides, in general it is difficult to dispute thattechnology working for people has transformed human society for the better.
Unfortunately, sometimes people end up working for technology instead. This is astrange state of affairs, but it happens just about daily for most of us. Asautomation takes over many jobs that used to belong to people, we frequentlyhave to spend ridiculous amounts of time fighting with poorly designedcomputerized systems when we could easily resolve the problem in two minutes ifwe just had the ability to talk to the person who used to be in charge. Menusand taxonomies are everywhere and force us to squash the incredible complexityof everyday life into boxes where they sometimes don’t fit because we don’t havethe option to explain. Meanwhile, we’re being manipulated by addictivetechnology every day: social media, notifications,advertising, and the like are designed to steal our attention and encourage usto interact with them constantly – not because that actually improves ourlives, but because it makes somebody somewhere more money. Even the worst kindsof bureaucracy can be seen as a case of people working for (human) technology.
Of course, you would be right to point out that I’m anthropomorphizingtechnology by saying that “people are working for technology” – in the end,other people are behind all this technology and are ultimately responsible forthe systemic problems it causes. That’s part of the solution: we need to stopbeing greedy and lazy and designing systems that suck for their users andsociety. As a software developer, I take personal responsibility for doingbetter on this front, and in this blog I intend to discuss problems of designfrom time to time.
But in the modern world, even those of us who spend a good part of ourprofessional lives designing complex technological systems are users of far moresystems than we ever design – by several orders of magnitude. To have any hopeof improving matters in our own lives, we have to tackle the problem from theother end as well. How do we cope with systems that we didn’t design that takeaway our agency and force us to work for the technology?
- We can opt out of using that technology altogether. This is oftenimpossible or inappropriate, but sometimes it really works forpeople.
- We can look for alternative options. For instance, I find that theWindows computer operating system and its ecosystem tend to reduce my freedomand empowerment, but other operating systems and ecosystems like GNU/Linuxtend to increase it. Whenever I have the choice, I use Linux instead.
- We can reduce use of the offending system. Maybe you carry yoursmartphone everywhere but you have rules about when you useit. Maybe you have a complicated diagramming programon the computer that you use for presenting information to others but yousave time, trouble, and frustration by sketching with a #2 pencil on a pieceof scrap paper when you don’t need something that looks nice. (You wouldthink software developers would be enthusiastic users of computer-baseddrawing, drafting, and diagramming tools, but there are very few gooddevelopers who don’t have a chalkboard or a pad of paper right next to theirdesk, because it works really well!)
- We can try to improve the technology. One of the nice things aboutcomputers is that they’re customizable. Particularly if the problematictechnology is on the computer, it may turn out that you actually have morecontrol over it than you think. There’s plenty of bad software that can’t beextended, modified, or customized to avoid its faults, but most softwarecan be tweaked in some way or another to avoid at least some of its problems.Next time you run into a badly designed system, try poking around in thatsystem or searching the web to see if there’s a solution or someone else hascome up with a useful workaround. You might be pleasantly surprised.
- We can simply become aware of the problems of the technology. Maybe it’snot worth doing anything about yet, or it’s simply impossible to do anythingabout (for instance, at my workplace there are some tasks for which I haveto use a few awful applications that I really can’t improve if I want to keepmy job). It’s easier to understand when you can and should apply one of theother tactics once you recognize the issues you’re facing. Even if you neverdo, it’s a lot less frustrating when you understand what you’re up against.For instance, one early personal computer supported only uppercaseletters, but its keyboard still had a Shift key, which was used to sendcommands to the computer, much like a Control or Command key today. One ofthese commands was Shift-Q, which would quit the currently running programand reboot the computer, often without confirmation. Unsurprisingly, usersregularly lost work while attempting to capitalize a Q out of habit. A userwho didn’t think about the problems of the technology might merely be angryat herself for being careless and pressing the button by mistake. A user whounderstood the problems of the technology would realize she made this mistakebecause the keyboard (and the software) was designed horribly, and she wouldhave a head start on figuring out how to modify either her own behavior orthe computer to prevent the problem from recurring.
In addition to coping with specific systems, many of us are simply in desperateneed of things that feel real and that we can be good at. Since the beginningof human history, people have done lots of real work that involves interactingwith the world, and now machines and computers are taking over much of it. Thesame machines and computers are changing our social interactions in ways thatare sometimes beneficial but just as often undesirable. It’s time to rediscoversome old technologies and ways of living that have fallen away over time – notto do away with their replacements entirely, but to take a good hard look atwhat they have to offer and how they might help resolve some of the problemswe’re having today.
The empowerment that comes from being in charge is disappearing quickly formany people. We have to find ways to take advantage of technology that doesthings for us while still doing some things for ourselves. That means carefullyconsidering the benefits and problems of each technology, and it means workingto make some things more efficient so that we can afford to take our time onthe things that make us more competent and that we actually enjoy and careabout.
This blog presents a great variety of general strategies and specific tacticsfor maintaining that delicate balance and for making technology work for usrather than the other way around. Browse around or follow the blog. Pick some ofthose strategies that sound interesting to you. Try the projects. See what ideasstick, and then run with them. With any luck, your life will get a little bitbetter.
Ctrl-Alt-Backspace is a keyboard shortcut that works on many Linux computersthat instantly kills the entire desktop and all running programs and returns youto the login screen. It’s an apt metaphor for this blog because of its immediacyand the power it gives the user: in Microsoft Windows you have to hope thecomputer agrees to let you log out or terminate a program when stuff startsgoing wrong, whereas in Linux as long as the computer has any spare CPU cyclesto notice that you pressed the keys, it trusts you and does just what you askedright away. That’s technology working for you.
