Friday, April 17, 2009
Uppity appliances advocated
re:
Attention-seeking objects will be hard to part with
17 April 2009
James Pierce at Indiana University in Bloomington is designing ways for objects to periodically make their presence felt, forcing us to "reflect" on them more often. He believes that this will increase our sense of attachment to our possessions, helping to end our unsustainable habit of constantly buying new things and dumping the old.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227045.700-attentionseeking-objects-will-be-hard-to-part-with.html
I'm very glad intelligent, creative people are taking a chance or two and trying to come up with new ways to put a few speed bumps in front of consumerism.
But I'm not sure misbehavior is the way. My father didn't keep his beaters around longer if they were especially temperamental - we all buy badly behaved or too hard to understand electronics and software, and then return it or shelve it, or garbage it.
Variable reinforcement seems like a better bet to me, appealing to the gambler in all of us - how about engraving a lottery ticket good for a hundred years into every consumer item. The ticket would be more likely to win the longer the "ticket" was still out there, a bit more likely every year. Then we could cling to our old toasters "just a little while longer" waiting for them to pay off. Of course, there could be unintended consequences, you might increase hoarding, or fuel consumerism. Learning theory says that variable reinforcement is astonishingly powerful.
The only other thought that occurs to me is, once technology allows, have every consumer item make friends with our kids, who would then be heartbroken if we got rid of them...
PS - The ancient greeks actually used to hold trials for tools that had injured or killed their owners, and condemn them to death. Sort of a "closure" thing, I guess.
Attention-seeking objects will be hard to part with
17 April 2009
James Pierce at Indiana University in Bloomington is designing ways for objects to periodically make their presence felt, forcing us to "reflect" on them more often. He believes that this will increase our sense of attachment to our possessions, helping to end our unsustainable habit of constantly buying new things and dumping the old.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227045.700-attentionseeking-objects-will-be-hard-to-part-with.html
I'm very glad intelligent, creative people are taking a chance or two and trying to come up with new ways to put a few speed bumps in front of consumerism.
But I'm not sure misbehavior is the way. My father didn't keep his beaters around longer if they were especially temperamental - we all buy badly behaved or too hard to understand electronics and software, and then return it or shelve it, or garbage it.
Variable reinforcement seems like a better bet to me, appealing to the gambler in all of us - how about engraving a lottery ticket good for a hundred years into every consumer item. The ticket would be more likely to win the longer the "ticket" was still out there, a bit more likely every year. Then we could cling to our old toasters "just a little while longer" waiting for them to pay off. Of course, there could be unintended consequences, you might increase hoarding, or fuel consumerism. Learning theory says that variable reinforcement is astonishingly powerful.
The only other thought that occurs to me is, once technology allows, have every consumer item make friends with our kids, who would then be heartbroken if we got rid of them...
PS - The ancient greeks actually used to hold trials for tools that had injured or killed their owners, and condemn them to death. Sort of a "closure" thing, I guess.
