Digital Dilemma, True Confessions

Too much customization?

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Last weekend I ordered pizza from Uber Eats. Admittedly, I don’t often order take out (or delivery). If I do get one of these things, I’m more likely to order directly in the restaurant and wait for the order. I’m a bit of a dinosaur this way. I also rarely get take out mostly because I hate all the packaging.

However, I did end up ordering it through an app. I was amazed at the amount of options to select and screens to scroll through to order a simple pizza. Honestly, it almost felt more time consuming and complicated than it would have been to order directly from the restaurant. I intentionally selected a pre-made option, rather than creating my own, which no doubt would have resulted in even more menus to click through.

The whole experience left me wondering if there’s such a thing as too much customization. I remember a particularly poignant lesson about offering choices and decision making from my catering days. I often did corporate catering at the New York Academy of Medicine. A lot of events were buffet lunches where we offered no less than 10 soda flavors, plus water, at the drink stand. In addition to the standard offerings of Coke, Diet Coke, and Sprite, some less common options were available. I recall specifically the Grape and Orange Crush. They’re not typical offerings at most venues.

Every time I stocked the drink bar I grumbled at having to stock and track so many different options. My manager, at the time, was adamant that having Orange or Grape Crush available could make somebody’s day. This was his rationale for the extra effort.

Then we had a new manager who cut the drink table down to four options. Instead of making somebody’s day with special soda flavors, we now made their day by improving the buffet line speed. Turns out people were inundated with too many decisions at our drink table. Consequently, this always created delays and bottle necks. With fewer options, people selected a drink quickly and moved on.

I couldn’t help but think of this valuable lesson scrolling through page after page of menu and topping options. Instead of being a time-saving convenience, the ordering process felt tedious and cumbersome. Too many options to pick and consider. Honestly, it was a little overwhelming. Next time, I’m eating in.

Human Archives

The Silence of Snow

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This weekend I caught up on some overdue yardwork. The falling snow prompted a flurry of activity, starting with shoveling. With the walkway shoveled, I headed into the backyard. I swept snow off the lawn furniture, put it in the garage and bagged up some old leaves. Then I dusted the new snow off the swinging bench.

Once the swing was cleaned I pulled out the tarp to cover it. Rain falls on the swing all summer, but I suppose the tarp protects it from snow and ice in the colder months. Unfolding the tarp took several minutes. Draping it over took some fiddling due to the large size. Once in place, I used a couple of bungee cords to seal it up on the ends.

Swinging Bench covered with the tarp.

After, I crawled under the tarp to sit on, the now protected and covered, swinging bench. I didn’t think I would enjoy it, but it was actually quite nice under there. Even without seeing anything, I could still feel the silent, hushed peace that arrives with the snow. As though everything is being blanketed in a soft, layer of fluff.

I have a hard time waking up in the dark mornings, especially since the sun rises almost an hour after my alarm. I sometimes find it challenging in the winter months to slow down my pace to match rhythm of the season. My bedtime is still hours after the sun sets with an early wake up. However, taking a few moments to sit in the solitude and stillness of the swing felt restorative.

My breathing slowed. The tarp provided protection from the elements, but also added a slight bit of warmth. Although bundled up in my substantial winter gear, it felt calm and cozy nestled under the protective green tarp. I know snow is cold and wet, but it can also be a great insulator and protector. When I grumble about shoveling, marveling at how something so light and fluffy can feel so heavy on the shovel, I often forget about some of the nice parts of snow.

It’s beautiful to watch as it falls. The world looks fresh and clean with garbage and other unsightly structures blanketed in a soft, downy coating. Highlights for me include the quiet, hushed feeling after a fresh snowfall and the pinkish hue of the sky at night.

Digital Dilemma

A New Kind of Stand Light

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I’ve started noticing a lot more tablets at my orchestra rehearsals. I see small, and large ones, propped on stands. At rehearsal the other week I watched the violist lean forward and magnify his music to scribble some notes for himself. Then he pinched the screen reducing the music back to its normal size.

I looked at my pencil with its worn out eraser. It’s an old mechanical one and sometimes the tip retracts when I push too hard to write. Then again, on the plus side, I can write things in my music while I’m still playing. It’s quick and easy to lift my pencil, jot in a note, all before joining in again. Though fascinating to watch the violist, I did have to wonder about making notes electronically without taking a real pause.

Some musicians have foot pedals connected to their tablets so they can turn pages without using their hands. This would be a neat trick, especially for fast page turns. I had a page turn so fast once, the second player had to reach over and turn the music for me so I could keep playing. Of course we also work around this by making an extra copy of the part so we can turn the page at a better moment. Though I would also be nervous about flipping too fast with a tablet. What if I accidentally turned two pages at once? Or got distracted keeping beat with my foot, which I often do, and mistakenly tapped the foot pedal?

Though, to be honest, turning pages the analog way is not fool proof either. I recall one concert where I accidentally left one of my pages flipped over. When I turned the page, it was blank. I happened to be performing with an octet, so I was pretty exposed on the stage. Also the music was fast and I ended up missing two pages by the time I got everything sorted out.

Even so, I’m still on the fence about using a tablet to read music. I rather enjoy the analog experience of reading from the paper. Rehearsal is a time to disconnect from electronics and listen to what’s going on around me. I like seeing a two-page spread on my stand, something that wouldn’t be possible with a tablet. For now, I’ll stick with my printouts.

Digital Dilemma, Social Media

Censoring the Internet

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I’ve always found China’s approach to the internet fascinating. Or at least based on my understanding of it to control content and messaging, mainly through censoring and propaganda. This means China restricts access to certain sites, domains, and social media options. They also employ, likely thousands of people, to monitor, delete, and scrub messages that don’t align with the government’s message.

Recently, protests started to erupt due to the strict covid limits. However, protestors, aware of the censoring that happens to posts, have started using creative workarounds to get their messages seen and heard. For example, some protestors hold up sheets of blank paper. Others may use code names and words, or certain emojis that will not flag unwanted attention, to escape detection. Or use something innocuous to send a message so that it will pass through the censors.

Now it’s a race between the censors and the content creators. It would be easy for censors to become overwhelmed and fall behind. Keeping up with the ever changing and various coded messaging is constant. Messaging moves fast in the digital world. And once something is out, it can be hard to contain.

In some ways, China’s desire to control the internet and social media content mirrors some of the challenges faced by social media companies. Meta, Twitter, etc. all have been trying to track, monitor, and deal with unwanted content. Now, their definition of unwanted, or problematic content, is different from China’s. But in the end, they all need to have some oversight and control of how people use the platforms. For the social media companies, it’s challenging because they also deal with operating in different jurisdictions, social customs, cultures, and languages. China is at least one country with the same laws, but they have over 1 billion people.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens. Will China be able to contain the protests in the digital universe? Will the government succumb to the pressure and relax the covid restrictions? Or will the limits become even more strict and enforced more strongly? Will news about any of the protests be seen outside of China?

Of course the nerdy archivist in me is thinking about who will preserve the digital trail from all this social unrest. Will there even be anything available to preserve? Or will the censors get to it first?

Social Media, Twitter

The Return of Trump to Twitter

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Shortly after purchasing Twitter, Elon Musk decided to reinstate Trump’s account. To clarify, the decision wasn’t Musk’s alone. Musk used Twitter to tweet out a poll for platform users to vote. The poll received about 15 million votes, 52% in favor of Trump’s return. However, it makes me wonder how many of those 15 million votes were from actual people.

Some people use chatbots and fake accounts to boost ratings and popularity on social media. Sometimes people even purchase fake followers to make themselves seem more famous than they really are. Was this taken into account when tabulating the results of the poll? And why are platform users making this important decision anyway?

The social media platform, in this case Twitter, is responsible for determining what sort of content can be tweeted and disseminated. In the last few years, Twitter made some moves to regulate content or restrict certain types of information on the platform. Trump’s removal from Twitter, following the events of January 6, 2021, is one result of these efforts.

However, Trump’s recent reinstatement is one example, of many, illustrating how social media companies like to have it both ways. Social Media platforms are fond of promoting themselves as a place for free speech, without any regard to what that actually means. On the other hand, they also love to use algorithms to control what kind of content gets promoted and circulated.

Based on my understanding, Musk’s idea is to allow anybody to tweet anything. Then use algorithms and other means, to restrict who actually gets to see inflammatory, or discriminatory, content. Is there a difference between telling a user they can’t post certain things? Or allowing them to post it and then keeping it hidden?

Content is available with the latter scenario for someone to find it. Or retweet it. Or favorite it. All of which help to disseminate that content. Whereas if the platform bans certain kinds of content in the first place, this can help to keep it from spreading. Or at least not on that platform. When one platform restricts content, users often use a different outlet. Sometimes if can even be worse when these types of users are “Lurking in the Dark Web.”

I’m not looking forward to hearing about Trump’s tweets again. Though it will probably be different now that he’s not the president.

Digital Dilemma, Social Media

Manipulated Media

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It’s becoming increasing easy for people to manipulate media in ways that are both damaging and undetectable. It used to be pretty obvious when a video, or photos, were altered. Now, with improved technology it’s difficult to discover some of these modifications without a lot of backend detecting work. Accessibility to these new technologies has also increased, meaning more people can now use them.

Platforms are also catering to this “mix and match” method of creating content. Tik Tok, for example, allows content creators to take bits of audio or video from other content creators to seamlessly create new content. In doing so, new memes, videos, and interpretations of audio clips can be re-invented continuously. The creativity of these mash-ups often impresses me, especially when they are clever or funny. However, there is a downside. Sometimes these mash-ups can be harmful, resulting in discrimination, defamation, or harassment.

The realistic nature of the new content, combined with the volume, makes it nearly impossible for people to do anything more than view it and move on. Meaning some of the damaging content isn’t getting verified, fact-checked, or sourced. With so many outlets all competing for our attention, it can also be difficult to know where to look for a source of truth.

Having high-interest, short snippets of information is a proven method for getting a lot of clicks. Thus, many people use catchy headlines, promote false stories, or exaggerated titles to gain an audience. Or to have their content shared broadly. This also feeds into the algorithms working silently behind the scenes to constantly suggest new content for us to view. Some of this is based on what we have liked, or viewed, previously. But mostly, they aim to keep our attention focused on the social media site. I blogged about this before a few years ago in “Social Media: Fanning the Flames.”

As mentioned earlier, people don’t have time to check everything. In fact, some people don’t even read the articles attached to sensational headlines before sharing it. Given the direction technology and social platforms are moving, I’m not sure what the future holds. Legislation and ways to control damaging technologies are often slow to develop, usually in reaction to something that has already happened. For now, be mindful of sensational content and how it grabs your attention, perhaps for longer than necessary.