'Pushback': Resisting the Life of Constant Connectivity 111
vinces99 writes "Researchers at the University of Washington have studied and named a trend lots of people can identify with: the desire to resist constant connectivity and step back from the online world. They call it 'pushback.' The researchers looked closely at instances of pushback against technology, reviewing 73 sources divided equally among three areas of online expression: personal blogs and websites, popular media sources and academic conferences and journals. Co-author Ricardo Gomez said they thought they'd find frustration with devices, costs or learning new technologies as key pushback motivations. Instead, the reasons were more emotionally based, with 'dissatisfaction' — the thought that users' needs are not really being met by technology — most often expressed, followed by political, religious or moral concerns. Other motivations were the wish to regain control of time and energy and fear of addiction to the technology. Among the least-often reported objections were worries about loss of privacy."
disconnecting temporarily (Score:5, Interesting)
The Forgotten User (Score:5, Interesting)
Pushback? It's always been there. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll open by repeating what others have said: this isn't being a Luddite, not by any means. If there's a tech toy / tool that makes my life easier, I'm all for it, whether it be physical goods or software.
But, similar to the "i love me" websites of the early days of the web, Twitter and Facebook, to me, are just another kind of dancing cat / hamster / chilli pepper: Utterly superfluous. I actively reject them, I have no FB or TW account. I don't want to know what my friends are doing 24x7. I don't want the world to know that I just had six blonde Oreos and two cups of non-name-brand non-trendy coffee that is still awesome due to careful preparation.
I'm sure this view is incomprehensible to some. To them I say: It's ok to sell yourself, if you don't mind being treated like a whore -- kept around only as long as you have value to the people "giving" you the serivce for "free." Myself, I'll make "them" work for their money: If you want my $, then you should make things that interest me. I'll hear about them, ads or no ads.
But to those making targeting decisions / algorithms with data obtained from my mere mousing around, I say "fuck off." I took off your logo'd t-shirts and polo shirts a decade ago. I stopped listening to your drivel on TV a decade ago. I block ads and do a few other interesting things, just so I don't have to see / hear your unrelenting patter.
Maybe y'all should look at it from that point of view: To them, your body is a billboard to display their ads, you are data, not a person. Deny them the use of your body, deny them the use of your data. Most everytime you click somewhere you just either made someone a fraction of a penny, or gave data to someone who will eventually make a mint aggregating your data to a massive data mine from which they "target" ads (or lately, as it turns out, "target" people directly)
Resistance to always-on isn't being a luddite, it's about being yourself, and keeping that self as private as possible. It's about not being a slave to the phone, but having the phone as a toy / tool: there for your use or amusement, not the other way 'round.