Hugh Pickens writes "Kevin Kelly writes that one of the greatest unappreciated inventions of modern life is the default, a technical concept first used in computer science in the 1960s to indicate a preset standard. There were no defaults in the industrial age but in the early days of computers, a default was the value the system would automatically assign itself if a program failed or when it first initiated. Kelly writes that the hallmark of flexible technological systems is the ease by which defaults can be modified, reprogrammed, adapted, changed, and tailored to our preferences, and optimized to fit our talents. "Choices materialize when summoned. But these abundant choices never appeared in fixed designs." Kelly calls defaults a tool for taming expanding choice. "In properly designed default system, I always have my full freedoms, yet my choices are presented to me in a way that encourages taking those choices in time — in an incremental and educated manner." But defaults are a double edged sword. "Many psychological studies have shown that the tiny bit of extra effort needed to alter a default is enough to dissuade most people from bothering, so they stick to the default, despite their untapped freedom," writes Kelly. "Their camera's clock blinks at the default of 12:00, or their password remains whatever temporary one was issued them" so the privilege of establishing the default value is an act of power and influence by the systems designers to steer the system. "Defaults also remind us of another truth. By definition a default works when we — the user or consumer or citizen — do nothing," writes Kelly. "Despite the claims of many, technology is never neutral. Even when you don't choose what to do with it, it chooses.""
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