(Time) Killer apps

Some Internet applications are "killer apps" and some are just time killers. I'll enjoy dissing the applications I dislike, but this post is really about how, and when, we come to realize this. I detest instant messaging conversations and predict that over time we will all come to realize what a bad idea IM is. On a conventional email exchange, you can't hear how the other person is reacting to what you say, but you can't be interrupted, either, allowing you to choose your words carefully. On a phone call, you can't choose your words carefully, but you can hear the other person's reaction and adjust your comments accordingly. IM combines the failings of both without their strengths. Recently I posted on what's good and not good about Facebook, and got a number of comments (some on this site and some on Facebook itself) agreeing that some apps are time-wasting and devoid of content - pokes, non-existent gifts, Mafia games and so forth. I see a pattern in the way people react to new technologies, new products, and even new styles. We tend to be enthusiastic about anything new. Only when something isn't new any more do we seem capable of dispassionate evaluation, often deciding at that time that the new thing wasn't that good a thing after all. In the late 1800s there was a great battle of music critics over traditional classical music, as Brahms was then composing, versus the "new" storytelling music that Wagner was producing at the same time. Wagner was the latest thing and Brahms was seen as conservative. Now both guys are more than a century dead, neither has the advantage of being the latest thing, and Brahms enjoys somewhat broader popularity. In jazz, many traditional performers are now venerated more than some later ones who enjoyed being thought progressive. In rock, later generations have revisited the classic rock of my adolescence, valuing some bands more highly than I did at the time. On the technological side, my best example is analog versus digital clocks. For timing purposes, an old-fashioned clock with a sweep hand is easier for timing on the air because remaining time is represented as space - the space from where the sweep hand is to the top of the clock face - and no math has to be done in your head to calculate remaining seconds. But the broadcasting engineers who order equipment were for years so enamored of the "new" digital clocks they couldn't conceive of ordering anything else. Broadcast engineers still order liner volume controls - "faders" - because they're newer technology than the old "pots," or "potentiometers" - rotary knobs. It's too bad, because turning a knob is a fine motor movement for the wrist that can be more finely calibrated than the gross motor movement of the arm that moves a fader. If you think hard you can probably remember something that was very hip for five minutes and then faded from sight, because once they were no longer the latest thing, people realized they were a dumb idea. There used to be cars for which you pushed buttons to shift gears. All men's ties were paisley for awhile in the 1980s. Remember the EcoGrill, which used balled-up newspapers to cook hamburgers with what was basically a controlled grease fire? What examples would you like to offer?

Comments

[johnfromberkeley]

howard-

i think different technologies have their place. in our workplace, im is an invaluable tool to get a quick answer to a question, or to engage a remote worker. if i chat with a friend, i prefer phone.

i'm not advocating anything, just suggesting that different people use different tools in different ways. what works (or doesn't work) for some doesn't necessarily work for all.

LOVE your blog!

j