I was flying (not this trip; I took the train to Amsterdam) and the guy in-front of me didn’t activate airplane mode, just browsed reddit till he lost reception. Then got back on coming down. I glared at him invisibly from between the seatbacks.
And that’s fine I guess? Like I doubt airplane mode actually matters, planes have got to be pretty well radio-hardened. Do what you want.
But.
He was so nonchalant about the whole ignoring-the-safety-instructions thing. I wanted him to at least experience the tut of social disapproval before deciding to break the rules.
Also,
- playing really loud tiktok on the bus or in restaurants, which is thing that mostly old people do for some reason
- or taking video calls in cafes without headphones
- or, again in cafes but with headphones this time, actually a headset with a mic, and bringing an actual whole laptop stand and typing like you’re beating a man to death, which super harshes the energy simply by proximity
- or making lengthy video recordings at gigs.
Like, yes, do these things, fine, whatever, it’s like tailgating, ruuuude but you do you.
Be aware that you’re crashing through some norms or another?
I blame the device in a way. I can’t blame you entirely.
Your phone is a little libertarian buddy who is whispering in your ear yeah go for it, who’s gonna stop you, might is right.
What I mean is that your phone should be aware that it being utilised in a way which is borderline not ok.
Perhaps it uses AI to hear and understand it is at a gig. Perhaps it uses a built-in radar chip to understand it’s in a crowd, or the accelerometer to detect it’s on public transport, whatever.
Then, when you go to play a video of your friend’s screaming kid at top volume at the next table without turning the volume down, again and again and - honestly unbelievably - again, a notification would pop up, and you would have to tap the specially-added People Will Look Hardware Action Button to do it anyway.
A sense of shame is purely algorithmic here.
It would have to vary by region I guess. When you travel, your phone would have to norm switch.
I say shame, I mean your devices have politics.
There are two ways to deal with the problem of noisy tiktoks on the bus.
EITHER, as I say, we say it’s your problem: Apple and Google and Samsung and all the rest have to put some kind of social inhibitor in the operating system, a catch that you have to override, and that has to be required by society, legally or by media pressure or something.
OR, alternatively, it’s my problem: if I don’t like it then it’s my job to do something about it. And in this case we could propose that I wear AirPods with a special kind of transparency mode – all devices should advertise to other devices, using Bluetooth or something, that they’re being noisy, and my AirPods can preferentially filter that out. A more independent and individualist approach.
Do you see that we’re essentially talking politics here?
Devices - phones, headphones, whatever - devices are negotiating the conflicting rights of individuals. How that is done is what we call politics.
I’m not saying that we should build politics into devices.
I’m saying that devices already embody a certain politics.
Perhaps this should be debated.
Being British, of course I am suggesting that phones should, instead of their current rugged individualistic ideology, by default moderate their behaviour using the automatic mechanisms of social pressure, i.e. shame.
Like I say, if I don’t turn off airplane mode when in-flight, or I light up my whole row to check my messages at a theatre, my phone should detect that, and force me to go through a special notification.
Other people nearby should get a special tut-tut button they can tap.
So if I’m being tutted, my phone shouldn’t actually stop doing what it’s doing, that’s my sovereign choice to be flagrant, but it should blush on my behalf.
We will implement blushing by making the offending phone perform some complex calculation internally which runs the battery super hard so it costs 1% or 2% remaining energy and also the back really heats up, a hot-faced hand-held glass slab social pariah.
I was flying (not this trip; I took the train to Amsterdam) and the guy in-front of me didn’t activate airplane mode, just browsed reddit till he lost reception. Then got back on coming down. I glared at him invisibly from between the seatbacks.
And that’s fine I guess? Like I doubt airplane mode actually matters, planes have got to be pretty well radio-hardened. Do what you want.
But.
He was so nonchalant about the whole ignoring-the-safety-instructions thing. I wanted him to at least experience the tut of social disapproval before deciding to break the rules.
Also,
Like, yes, do these things, fine, whatever, it’s like tailgating, ruuuude but you do you.
Be aware that you’re crashing through some norms or another?
I blame the device in a way. I can’t blame you entirely.
Your phone is a little libertarian buddy who is whispering in your ear yeah go for it, who’s gonna stop you, might is right.
What I mean is that your phone should be aware that it being utilised in a way which is borderline not ok.
Perhaps it uses AI to hear and understand it is at a gig. Perhaps it uses a built-in radar chip to understand it’s in a crowd, or the accelerometer to detect it’s on public transport, whatever.
Then, when you go to play a video of your friend’s screaming kid at top volume at the next table without turning the volume down, again and again and - honestly unbelievably - again, a notification would pop up, and you would have to tap the specially-added People Will Look Hardware Action Button to do it anyway.
A sense of shame is purely algorithmic here.
It would have to vary by region I guess. When you travel, your phone would have to norm switch.
I say shame, I mean your devices have politics.
There are two ways to deal with the problem of noisy tiktoks on the bus.
EITHER, as I say, we say it’s your problem: Apple and Google and Samsung and all the rest have to put some kind of social inhibitor in the operating system, a catch that you have to override, and that has to be required by society, legally or by media pressure or something.
OR, alternatively, it’s my problem: if I don’t like it then it’s my job to do something about it. And in this case we could propose that I wear AirPods with a special kind of transparency mode – all devices should advertise to other devices, using Bluetooth or something, that they’re being noisy, and my AirPods can preferentially filter that out. A more independent and individualist approach.
Do you see that we’re essentially talking politics here?
Devices - phones, headphones, whatever - devices are negotiating the conflicting rights of individuals. How that is done is what we call politics.
I’m not saying that we should build politics into devices.
I’m saying that devices already embody a certain politics.
Perhaps this should be debated.
Being British, of course I am suggesting that phones should, instead of their current rugged individualistic ideology, by default moderate their behaviour using the automatic mechanisms of social pressure, i.e. shame.
Like I say, if I don’t turn off airplane mode when in-flight, or I light up my whole row to check my messages at a theatre, my phone should detect that, and force me to go through a special notification.
Other people nearby should get a special tut-tut button they can tap.
So if I’m being tutted, my phone shouldn’t actually stop doing what it’s doing, that’s my sovereign choice to be flagrant, but it should blush on my behalf.
We will implement blushing by making the offending phone perform some complex calculation internally which runs the battery super hard so it costs 1% or 2% remaining energy and also the back really heats up, a hot-faced hand-held glass slab social pariah.