It's Laggy
On slowing-down devices and locking phones, data fictions and sharing, new methods and the rise of social commerce.
Rapid consumption calls for devices that can take the pace.
Recent news stories about old iPhones being deliberately slowed-down have resurfaced again. Whatever the reason for it, it tells us something about the temporality of connections. The updates that slowed the phones were enough to disrupt the routinised rhythms of connection, making the user feel as if they were put out of time. I suspect the slowing was marginal, but yet it was enough for it to feel too slow. Any slowdown of connection is always likely make a user feel the lag.
The sense of intanteneity is suddenly replaced with a feeling of delay. The result is likely to be an upgrade to the device to avoid the feeling of being behind, and so the circuits of capitalism are energised - a little like when software updates come to an end. Elinor Carmi has recently written about the importance of rhythm in our media environment. Disrupting the rhythms is perhaps one way to provoke action. Maintaining the pace of turnover in contemporary capitalism might take a slowdown or a discontinuation. It’s hard to blow the dust off device that has fallen off the pace, something new is needed, a replacement. And there is that sense that we need to be acting quickly to keep up with our media, if our devices hold us up they won't last long. A lag is very noticeable.
In this media infrastructure timing is everything.
Timing and locking. Or maybe its unlocking. Mobile phone networks are going to be prevented from locking phones. It always seemed strange that a phone handset that someone owned could only be used on one network. Of course, they could be unlocked, but the limiting of a device to a network was on way of keeping its user (and that device) in that network. It was a little bit of inconvenience that prevented easy switching.
So, slowing-down and locking seem like mechanisms of network and device control that are no longer an option. The question is whether this frees people to either stick with old devices or to move the networks they connect to. There is a lot of revenue at stake, so maybe the mechanisms will become more subtle and, perhaps, more behaviourally orientated. Will we even notice? The slowing down or the locking of devices seems quite clunky now, old fashioned perhaps. Its quite a crude and material way to manage interfacing. There are likely to be more immaterial ways to manage the lifespan, renewal and versatility of these interfaces.
Credit where it’s due…
Any yet data gets shared. The credit scoring company Experian have reportedly been instructed to alter their data sharing practices by the Information Commissioner's office. Treating data as a commodity presents inevitable questions about access and sharing. This case presents more questions about data ownership and the control of those data. I argued last year that questions about data ownership and control should also be accompanied by questions over who has the right to analyse those data.
Whilst on the topic, can watching Netflix boost your credit score? It can if you give Experian access to your bank details including your regular subscriptions. They call it a ‘data boost'.
Ways of saying…
Rob Kitchin has written about the his use of fiction for communicating research and academic ideas for the blog Transforming Society. The piece explores how writing fiction can help to communicate more effectively and in ways that aren't possible in more traditional modes of academic writing. The piece links to Rob's upcoming book Data Lives, which will be published in February and is now available for pre-order. I've been fortunate to have seen an advanced copy of the book, as I've written an endorsement. It blends fiction with other types of storytelling, drawing out issues in critical data studies.
Ways of doing…
Another new book that does some rethinking of research practices focuses more on the production side of things. Celia Lury has a new book to be published later in the year entitled Problem Spaces: How and Why Methodology Matters. The book attempts to think about how methods might change and how new possibilities and questions might be explored. The book looks like it will engage with some of the big and interediscplinary challenges around how research is done, especially in response to a changing social world.
Buy it…
Social commerce is going to be a big step in social media. In some ways, it surprising it is tanking this long to expand. Buying products directly within the platform is going to transform consumption and also increase the stickiness of social media. This is already an established presence within WeChat. Now it is spreading across other social media. One result is that influencers can promote products on their feeds and their followers can buy without the need to leave the platform - it has other applications, but this one stands out in particular. The news that TiKTok is using Shopify to embed purchasing options is the latest in this line of development in social media. The aim is clearly to build platforms that users leave even less regularly.
On this last point, when asked about whether their platforms are addictive this is what two of the platform chief executives had to say. When you are trying to make a platform as sticky as possible, it would seem that you don't have an answer ready when asked to consider the other side of this.
Before…
The next instalment of Stuart Elden’s series of books on Foucault’s writings and ideas is due out next year. This book deals with The Early Foucault.
Finally…
In case it’s of interest to you or anyone you know, we have some jobs advertised in the sociology department at the University of York. We have fixed-term Associate Lecturer posts in Social Media & Society and we also have open contract Lecturer posts in Sociology.