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I agree that the The Future is not Real-Time, but I don't really think these are new phenomena (neither real-time technologies, nor the fact that they aren't Th
by veidr 14y ago
I agree that the The Future is not Real-Time, but I don't really think these are new phenomena (neither real-time technologies, nor the fact that they aren't The Future).
It's probably mostly just my age (37), but I feel like these things come and go on a cycle.
My first brush with realtime was having a pager in high school. Wow neat, my friends can get ahold of me even when I am out in the streets! Huh, lame, all these people have my pager number now, and it beeps all the time and I never know if it is worth calling back.
Then came ICQ. Most of my friends and college classmates were all over that shit. I never understood it: text chat only seemed interesting to me late at night when I was too stoned (or whatever) to focus on anything. It combined the annoying immediacy of a phone call with 10% of the communications bandwidth of actual conversation.
Then I got a cell phone, but by that time we had caller ID and other people had cell phones (as opposed to the pay phones that had been calling my pager), and so it was only a minimal intrusion because just glancing at it told me that I didn't need to take that call right now (95% of the time).
So it wasn't too annoying, until the phones started to bleat our plaintive little demands to read the "text messages" that they had become capable of. I disabled the service.
Eventually we got to where we have data service and pocket computers everywhere. (I love that btw.) So now tons of people are pecking out little bleeps on facebook and twitter pretty much constantly. I don't really get this behavior any more than I got ICQ.
I like reading realtime twitter bleeps, say, when I search for something, or perhaps when I go on twitter to read stuff (if I did that), but why would I want them at other times?
I feel like Clifford Stoll, sometimes, ranting in my cabin in the woods about how e-commerce is never gonna catch on. Especially when somebody "pokes" me on facebook. (Thankfully, I only see that when I log on every month or so to see my sister's latest baby pictures.) But... what does that even mean? Why would I want people to be able to "poke" me? Whenever they want? And seemingly purposefully devoid of any content other thank the fact of poking me? Crazy!
So I fully admit that I don't get this latest round of 'realtime', but the solutions are still the same as the last times realtime came around. Just arrange to deal with information on your own time.
You want your machines to get data in realtime; sure, why not? And it will be cool if, in the future, we do indeed "find ways to artificially stem the constant flow of information through algorithmic summarization."
But there's a simpler, manual way to stem the constant flow of demands on your time: just reject them, and deal with them later, at your own convenience, or perhaps never.
What exactly is it that makes that hard for some people to do?
- davedx 14y agoThat's an interesting viewpoint, but it is your viewpoint. I personally get a lot of value from real-time information sources - links to new software releases or bug fixes, updates on social meetings with friends, uploads of photos from vacations and the like. I want this information, the trouble is (as the article says) I can't be available to filter and process it 24/7. So I end up reading through lots of junk to mine the value from the stream. If someone wrote an algorithm that knew what I valued and filtered / built digests for me, that would be great! Saying I should just 'deal with it later' doesn't really help though, because later there's more stuff to filter.
- freehunter 14y agoI love having text communication. Generally, I view voice as a waste of my time. This is, I feel, the big disconnect between the younger generation and the older generation. I hear quite a bit "if you're going to spend 15 minutes texting, why not just call?" Because when I'm texting, I can set the phone down and do something else while waiting for a response. Voice is real-time, and very attention-demanding. Text slows it down a bit, condenses it, and waits for my response. I can prioritize it. There's no ending of a call and thinking "oh, I forgot to mention X", or sitting on the line trying to remember what you were going to say. The only thing missing is a global "busy" status. I feel this is due to the lack of a globally unified text message (including IM and twitter) system. I don't think there's a polite way to kindly tell someone to urgently shut the hell up over text/IM, at least not that I'm aware of. The only annoyance I have with text communications systems is hearing "dingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingding" as someone sends me 15 messages in a row when I am unable to respond. The future isn't real time. The past is. A phone call is. The future is sending information as quickly and painlessly as possible, and for "Gen Y", this includes text/IM. These services don't demand attention, beyond letting you know they're there. Then again, I grew up with AIM/MSN/ICQ, so again, I feel it might be a generational thing.
- dredmorbius 14y agoKnowing when to switch modes is very helpful. Quick one-offs by text are great. Voice is much easier in certain situations (when typing is difficult, when driving). And at times, voice allows for a much more rapid exchange than text. A quick 1-5 minute phone call can be far less interruptive than a 15 minute sequence of texts or IMs. Sometimes, as well, it's simply nice, or the right thing, to talk to someone. I feel no obligation to respond to and/or pick up any given communication from a stranger. Family, friends, and co-workers are generally given a much higher priority (though not absolute).