The Letter Z

I’ve just arrived in D.C., after a sleepless red-eye flight from Seattle. I’m always a little silly when I have no sleep, so I apologize in advance for any undue lightness of tone. The guy next to me on the first leg of my flight, when I told him I was going to Washington, D.C., remarked that it’s somewhere that every American is supposed to visit once. “So, cross it off your list,” he said.

I added my name to the list of people blogging ALA Annual. Not sure what obligations I have now, but I’ll try to write lots of long boring posts summarizing every single thing I attend. Then all you loyal readers can feel like you’re right here with me.

Actually, I’m going to try to finish up a post I started yesterday that has nothing to do with ALA. Yesterday, I discovered a new memo released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project entitled “Don’t Blame Me: It’s the Phone’s Fault!” which examines the results of a previous study that found that about half of Americans have “distant relationships” to technologies like the Internet, cell phones, iPods, etc. The Pew reports refer to these as “information and communication technologies,” or ICTs for short.

The memo seeks to examine why so many Americans are uninterested in or uncomfortable with ICTs. It suggests that the non-users are not all Luddites like Michael Gorman, but in fact have some complex reasons for deciding not to use ICTs. For example, 45% of Americans feel that technology either gives them less control over their lives or makes no difference at all.

The best part of the memo is that, at the end, you get to take a quiz and find out what sort of tech user you are. So I took the 9-question quiz and found out that I’m a “connector,” which means:

7% of the adult population surround themselves with technology and use it to connect with people and digital content. They get a lot out of their mobile devices and participate actively in online life.

The typical member of the Connectors group first went online about nine years ago. They were part of the big wave of internet adoption in the late 1990s adoption. This mostly female group of thirtysomethings is heavily reliant on the cell phone; they especially like the way the cell phone and other information technologies make them more available to others. They often use the wireless networks to go online. The Connectors’ collection of information technology is used for a mix of one-to-one and one-to-many communication. They very much like how ICTs keep them in touch with family and friends, but they are also twice as likely as the average to blog or have a Web page. They like how ICTs let them work in community groups to which they belong, and overall they find their information gadgets a boon to personal productivity.

Well, ok, I guess. I don’t have any mobile devices, though, no blog and no wireless laptop. (Which, incidentally, is why I’m sitting in the DC Public Library and frantically trying to peck this out before my Internet time runs out.) Maybe this makes me one of those Luddites I’ve been hearing so much about lately. But I suppose the quiz did the best it could with the answers I gave it.

I, of course, tend not to like the simple, closed-ended questions these types of questionnaires tend to feature. In fact, as K.G. Schneider so pointedly put it recently, I tend to like to discourse at length, which those quizzes never let me do.

But, my loyal readers, I know that you want to hear me discourse at length, even if Pew doesn’t. And, as E.B. White said (but not about me), “The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest.” And what is a blogger if not a digital essayist? So here are my annotated answers to the Pew quiz.

Question 1.

Some people say they feel overloaded with information these days, considering all the TV news shows, magazines, newspapers, and computer information services. Others say they like having so much information to choose from.
How about you… do you feel overloaded, or do you like having so much information available?

Well, actually, I feel overloaded and I like having so much information available. I think that I am becoming something of an ICT junkie, in fact, at least in terms of the Internet. Heaven knows what would happen if I stopped being a Luddite and got myself a cellular phone.

Ivan Illich writes that in a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.” If we are a society of information consumers (as Ed D’Angelo argues convincingly that we are), then I fear I am one of the prisoners of information addiction. But, on to…

Question 2.

Overall, do you think that computers and technology give…
people MORE control over their lives, LESS control over their lives, or don’t you think it makes any difference?

That’s a tough one. I definitely think it makes a difference, but I’m not quite sure how. I don’t think technology facilitates self-control in the way Aristotle conceived of it, as the virtue of only desiring, and fulfilling, the proper pleasures, and maintaining a mean between temperance and indulgence. If anything, my technological tools have only increased my ability to fulfill those desires that I wouldn’t have had if I didn’t have the technological tools in the first place.

Questions 3-7 are pretty straightforward, so I’ll spare you the details.

Question 8.

Please tell us if each of the following statements describes you very well, somewhat well, not too well or not at all.

A. I like that cell phones and other mobile devices allow me to be more available to others

Not really. This is actually what I like least about cell phones and other mobile devices. I don’t mind having others available to me, but I’d prefer to be available only when I want to be. I guess this means I do think ICTs give you less control over your life.

B. When I get a new electronic device, I usually need someone else to set it up or show me how to use it

Before today I would have said this describes me not at all. But I was given a cell phone by my job for my trip to D.C., and it took me ten minutes to figure out how to turn it on. I never figured out how to check the voicemail, and I somehow turned the speaker on and couldn’t get it to go off. So I think I’d better change my answer to “not too well.” Pew won’t let me italicize “too,” either.

C. I believe I am more productive because of all of my electronic devices

Yikes. I don’t even want to think about that one. I suppose I do produce more using my electronic devices than I do with my non-electronic ones. But I also spend vast quantities of time doing things like reading RSS feeds in a very unproductive fashion. So if you measure productivity as amount produced divided by time spent, I’m afraid the answer would be no.

I’m worried about how difficult these questions were to answer, and I wonder how that reflects on Pew’s classification. I do believe, though, that Pew used a far more detailed set of questions for the actual study. I suppose the quiz I filled out is just a game, just another piece of information for me to consume. And now, hopefully, for some of you to consume as well in your unproductive RSS feed reading. I’m glad I could pass this on. After all, I’m a connector.