Alien Technology: Coping with Modern Mysteries

214 Pages·2011·0.79 MB·English

by  Ananda Mitra

Alien Technology

Alien Technology
Coping with Modern Mysteries
Ananda Mitra
Copyright © Ananda Mitra, 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publisher.
First published in 2010 by
SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd
B1/I-1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area
Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044, India
www.sagepub.in
SAGE Publications Inc
2455 Teller Road
Thousand Oaks, California 91320, USA
SAGE Publications Ltd
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London EC1Y 1SP, United Kingdom
SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd
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#02-01 Far East Square
Singapore 048763
Published by Vivek Mehra for SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd, typeset in
11.5/13.5 pt Baskerville MT by Innovative Processors, New Delhi and printed at
Chennai Micro Print (P) Ltd., Chennai.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mitra, Ananda, 1960-
Alien technology : coping with modern mysteries/Ananda Mitra.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Technological innovations—Social aspects. 2. Technological innovations
—Psychological aspects. 3. Alienation (Social psychology) I. Title.
HM846.M58 303.48'3—dc22 2010 2010033658
ISBN: 978-81-321-0466-7 (PB)
The SAGE Team: Elina Majumdar, Sonalika Rellan, and
Sanjeev Kumar Sharma
This book is dedicated to our ancient ancestors
who looked at a circular piece of stone and wondered what to do
with it, and then figured out the usefulness of the wheel.

Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xi
1 The Law of Technological Alienation 1
Thinking about Technology
Alienation
2 The Cup Holder on My PC is Broken 14
One Tool Does All
New Tasks
Technological Obsolescence
Responding to Alienation
3 Maybe My Monitor’s Out of Ink 43
Factors that Lead to the Second Level of
Alienation
Second Level of Alienation
4 Computer Problems? Don’t Go Nuts 72
Is It Really Broken?
Getting It Repaired
Complex Tools Needing Multiple Helpers
Teams with Tools
Replace, Not Repair
viii Alien Technology
5 I Can Fix This 94
Fear of Technology
Bad Experience
Keeping Things Hidden
Is It Really Fixed?
Finding a Fix
6 I Am Glad I Don’t Know 117
No Need for the Tool
Alienation and Transparent Technology
The Willing User
7 Those Who Know Are in Control 138
Alienation and Power
Being Powerless
8 What Do I Need to Do? 159
Alienation and Intelligence
Magical Tools
Critical User
How Alienated Am I?
9 Preliminary Steps 176
The Language of Technology
Questions to Ask
Notes 194
Index 198
About the Author 202
Preface
Apple Corporation, who gave the world the iPod and later the
iPhone, had hoped to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of
2008. They nearly reached that goal. In other words, there are
10 million people in the world who now own an iPhone. Yet
the iPhone is a complex tool. Its function as a phone is only the
tip of the iceberg of functions that the iPhone can be made to
do. Indeed a cottage industry has grown up around this tool
with numerous people composing simple computer programs
that will allow the user of the iPhone to do a myriad of tasks
from finding a restaurant in New York to doing a Ganesh Puja
to worship the Hindu God. There were about 10,000 such
programs, or applications, that were available to the iPhone
user in 2008 and the numbers continue to grow. The iPhone
is also one of the numerous tools, from the digital camera to
the fuel-efficient family car, that have flooded the technology
marketplace all over the world. This has been the trend in the
developed nations of the West since World War II and has now
become the trend in countries like China and India where large
populations now have the desire and capability of owning these
tools. Ownership is, however, not an indicator of use.
This book deals with the condition that the owner of a tool
might not actually be using the tool to its full and possible
potentials. In an absurd extension of full functionality, one
would think that the owner of the iPhone would actually have
all 10,000 applications installed on the gadget. But even if one
x Alien Technology
were not to go to that extreme, it is often the case that a large
portion of users remain distant from their gadgets. The tools
become inscrutable and alien, and the level of alienation is only
increased as the tools become more sophisticated. This book is
about the different possible levels of alienation of the user from
the tools that an individual might be compelled to use. This
book is also about the ways in which overcoming the alienation
can allow people to become better and empowered users of
the gadgets that might have appeared to be mysterious at one
time.
Through the process of empowerment it is possible to deploy
the tools in a manner that could provide a voice to the people
using the tool. However, that becomes a political argument as
made by authors like Roger Silverstone in talking about the
relatively restricted scope of media alone in the book Media and
Morality. Silverstone suggests that one needs to understand the
power of media technologies and realize its empowering or
disempowering potentials. To be sure, some tools can offer that
space for the marginal to become empowered, but the purpose
of my book is not to look for the ways in which tools empower
people, but to demonstrate that a pre-condition for empowerment
of any form is to overcome the intrinsic alienation that people
feel with respect to the tools themselves.
I would hope that after reading this book there would be
a moment of introspection to consider where we stand with
respect to the gadgets and machines that have become a part of
our lives. The response cannot be what the textile artisans called
Luddites did in York in 1811 when they protested the arrival of
textile mills by attacking and damaging the factories, but the
response must involve seeking out appropriate information that
would reduce the alienation from the tools so that we are not
enslaved by the tools but gain control on the way in which we
must use the tools to add to our quality of life.