Facebook's Design Trap

With about 134,000 Facebook users only in the United States, and the average American user spending over three hours per day on the social networking site (Facebook statistics here), it has permeated through all facets of the American, not to mention global, population. Therefore, there is not only a lot to be said about the goal behind it, connecting friends with friends and allowing them to share updates about their lives at any time, but also the structure and design of the site which allows this goal.

Although Facebook has frequently changed up the format of their site, causing much unease and frustration amongst its users, its most basic functions have remained the same. Users setup two-dimensional profiles for themselves, complete (yet perpetually incomplete) with a profile picture, birthday, career description, relationship status, and different interests. To this profile, users can then add statuses, upload pictures or videos, and share the posts of other groups or people. The next step is connecting with other users by “friending” them, which then allows every user to see the activity of their “friends” on their “News Feed” and either “like” or comment it.

Though many of these aspects of Facebook could be picked apart structurally, it is one of the most enticing and attractive features of Facebook, the ability for each user to create his or her own personal profile page, that I want to take a closer look at.

The Facebook Profile Page

Selectively choosing pictures and descriptors that paint the picture of themselves that they wish others to see. Structurally, Facebook has made this very easy, with simple drop-down menus for things like relationship status (which may be much more complicated that it would seem on the site) or upload options for profile picture (which could be of the actual person or of a leek, depending on the user’s whims and fancies). This structural choice to make users’ profiles boil down to their age, what they look like, who they are with, the things they like, and the things they say online is very intentional and has far-reaching effects. Because users are selective about what they publish about themselves, they are not only broadcasting a warped and incomplete image of themselves to the world, which people like the author of this Economist article would argue breeds nothing but unhealthy envy, but they are looking into a warped mirror of themselves, breeding narcissism and body image issues.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Facebook. I shamefully spend hours on it everyday, sucked in by the never-ending updates on my News Feed and the exchange of comments with friends. I also see benefit greatly from it, as I can keep in touch with long-distance friends and stay in the loop with the different extracurricular groups or classes I am in. However, I have also made a concerted effort to recognize the slippery and intentional design tactics Facebook has used to keep me hooked. And while the profile page allows us to connect with and learn about others, we have to realize that it occupies a space somewhere between the second dimension and unbounded imagination.

The Ins and Outs of the Bard's Language

The language William Shakespeare used in all his plays is like a whole new geographic world. I say ‘geographic’ because it is certainly has texture and allows for movement, constructed with topography and features. And although the structure and workings of Shakespeare’s language can sometimes make the dialogue of his plays difficult to decipher, it is in this structure that Shakespeare focused his most concerted effort, as his plot-lines were often revamped versions of old stories and myths, as with Hamlet. Therefore, this geographic world of the structure of Shakespeare’s language is undoubtedly worth exploring.

One example of the interesting structural practices the Bard utilized with this writing is inverted sentence orders, as described more fully in this article. By switching around the sequence of the subject, verb and object of his sentences, Shakespeare accomplished multiple things. He was able to match the rhyming metrics of the time better, turn certain parts of speech into different ones (verb -> noun, noun -> adjective, etc.), and also shift the overall emphasis of a line to particular parts of it which would have been otherwise glossed over.

Another especially troublesome structural tactic Shakespeare used in his plays is omitting a whole array of things, from individual letters and punctuation to whole words or lines. Similar to the inverted sentence structures, this was probably done primarily for practical reasons, allowing him to get his ideas across in the demanded number of syllables and with the vocal stresses that made performing the play easier and more powerful. However, this practice also resulted in the creation of a sort of new language altogether, anachronous in all eras. As years of human development lead to the shortening of words in everyday language to breed colloquialisms, Shakespeare did the same for the communities of characters in his plays, making the language uttered by the actors in The Globe Theatre in 1610 and the actors in The Chicago Shakespeare Theatre in 2010 equally as foreign to their audiences.

A third particularly nasty structural habit Shakespeare had with his language was the insert large swaths of text in the middle of ordinary dialogue which leads the audience in hundreds of other tributaries and rivulets they were not expecting to traverse on their journey down the river of the play. While confusing, a lot can be said for insight these additions provide into the rationale and conscience of the characters as we are not simply taken from the characters’ observations to their conclusions, but have to buckle up and take the trip through their entire path of coming to that conclusion as well. This leads to better character development and depth and complexity in the stories.

So whether for practical or rhetorical reasons, Shakespeare’s purposeful use of unusual structural techniques definitely resulted in his language remaining memorable over more than 400 years. And perhaps that is its biggest legacy. While students may be cringing in their classroom desks while reading his plays off paper, people all over the world still flock to theatres to see them performed, leaving their own world behind to explore the ins and outs of the Bard’s language.

Balloon Rooms

While scrolling through my favorite visual arts blog (which I highly recommend), I was intrigued by one particular eccentric project. Penique Productions, an artist collective based in Barcelona, came out with a series of photographs of transformative installations they had created in public places. These installations consisted of enormous plastic balloons inflated inside grand spaces within buildings or other interior areas. Below is an example of one such installation, but this link will take you to the entire series.

When I saw the brief introduction to the series which explained that these artists had chosen to When I first saw these photographs, I did a double take. The results of their efforts were like nothing I had ever laid eyes upon before. So many aspects of the rooms had disappeared, hidden behind the rubbery sheets of the balloon. There were no longer colors, except for the one solid color of the balloon, there were no people, the lighting was completely thrown off, and there was no sense of depth. However, with these things lost, other aspects of the room that would have otherwise gone unnoticed suddenly jumped to the foreground. For example, the outlines of the pillars and intricate edges of the architecture became sharp and eye-catching as they pushed on the flexible fabric. And by washing out the colors of the walls and warping the lighting through the large windows, my perception of the size and shape of the room changed dramatically, just as my house somehow seemed much smaller or larger after we moved all our furniture out before we moved.

This results of this project immediately reminded me of the neurological phenomenon that occurs when people lacking individual senses, like sight or hearing, try to gain insight from the same things as fully sighted or hearing people. Often, it is observed that those lacking certain senses have compensated with hyper-acute other senses, and perceive things using different parts of their brains than those with all their senses fully functioning. For example, as this source describes, blind people often use their advanced sense of hearing to detect the locations of objects, therefore highlighting aspects of those objects that sighted people would tend to take for granted.

Areas of brain activated by Braille tactile discrimination task indicate activity in occipital lobe (includes primary visual cortex) of early blind person, but not of sighted person

It is wonderfully curious that this seemingly simple and done-for-the-hell-of-it design project can serve as a simulation of the mental processes of the blind and deaf. The perception exercise that simply scanning these photographs evoked is one that is very valuable for all people to experience. Not only does it give us a deeper understanding of the world view of a significant population, but it also gives us a deeper appreciation for the simple things around us. Who knew a balloon in a room could do so much?

Decorum, Please!

Currently blogging from a world class Model UN Conference, MUNUC, or Model United Nations of the University of Chicago, I am astounded. Hundreds of delegates are gathered together to discuss relevant and extremely complex global issues, and the diversity and urgency of the ideas swirling around me are palpable.

However, it is something more basic and mundane yet undoubtedly essential that is especially piquing my interest. It is the strict and sturdy structure of the Model UN committees I have witnessed that has actually left me with many questions. The officials in charge of keeping order in the committee, also called the “dais”, have been extremely prone to banging their gavels repeatedly almost every few minutes, demanding “decorum”, or a strict adherence to the rules of parliamentary procedure, which is the specific protocol to be followed during the debate forums at Model UN conferences. And they don’t do this at discrete or convenient times. They do it in the middle of somebody’s speech, or when people start laughing a bit.

In essence, most natural exchange of thoughts is being constricted by the pathways delineated by parliamentary protocol, such as making motions, giving speeches which normally last for 30 seconds to a minute, and hosting chaotic unmoderated caucuses. The flow of the debate is unnatural.

Sure, I can definitely see the merits of the strict structure of Model UN. While our committee is relatively small with only about 30 to 40 delegations represented, some of the larger committees can include hundreds of delegations, making such protocol necessary to ensure that the voices of all countries can be heard in an orderly and civilized manner. However, I cannot help but wonder if jumping through all the rigidly-set hoops is what keeps us in committee for four hours at a time, twice a day, with hardly anything getting done. And I also wonder if all the components of parliamentary procedure are necessary in this day and age. For example, the chairperson of my committee repeatedly corrected people for using the term “caucus” instead of the more accurate term “informal session”... Really?

I’m sure some happy medium exists between structure and the free exchange of ideas, but I am curious to hear where you all think it is located. Especially since actual institutions, like the real United Nations, operate through the structure I am experiencing this weekend.