As technology and the Internet have changed our perception of information
A Life Technologies / / December 19, 2019
Denis Zolotarev
Art director, a specialist in the field of multimedia journalism, digital is-design and infographics. Blog on Medium.
The emergence and development of a global network can be considered an event comparable in importance to the invention of printing: movable type printing technology for a couple of centuries turned all the principles of reproduction, distribution and consumption information. Internet enough for the same thing a few decades.
As a result of this change ourselves? What are the features of perception of information today's average web user? Do they entail positive or negative effects? Let's try to answer these questions.
I have identified a number of trends emerging among active users - those people who are most immersed in digital communications. This list is subjective and basically describes what I see around me and what changes are observed in yourself.
1. We have become faster
Now we take more data per unit time, our "throughput" increased.
Daily volume required to assimilate the information grows, the time consumption of individual pieces becomes less. In this case, information capacity communications aims to keep at the same level. This leads to a "seal" of our messages and increase in "bandwidth."
Look at how Apple changed videos from the last 9 years:
- 2009 - iPhone 3GS.
- 2011 - iPhone 4s.
- 2016 - iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.
- 2017 - iPhone X.
In the latest video, even no voice-over. Voice - it's too long. Text is perceived much faster.
But you can not argue that increases the speed and quality of information processing. As we can load more in less time, but is accelerated by this analysis and processing?
2. Our increased multitasking
We can simultaneously consume information from multiple channels or to maintain multiple concurrent communications.
Almost everyone can drive a car while talking on the phone, and even stuffing SMS. Almost all can speak several topics in multiple windows messenger, and some - even within the same conversation, alternating posts.
Technology evolves symmetrically this, trying to provide us with maximum multitasking. Distribution of functions "Picture in Picture"Cunning notification system in the background" loaded "mode in our new data unit, multipurpose services such as Booking.com - all this is aimed at crushing our attention.
Revealing video that demonstrates how the phone looks like a man with 8 million subscribers in Instagram.
As an extreme example of such adaptation can remember interesting history about helicopters "Apache", Super Vivid Interface which led eventually to the development of trained pilots the ability to read two books at a time.
3. We are increasingly difficult to concentrate
researchEducation in the era of "goldfish"., Conducted by Microsoft in 2015, shows that our ability to retain attention on a single object was reduced to 8 seconds (say, that it is less than that of a goldfish).
Is it so? On the one hand, everyone will agree that reading books has become more difficult - always want to be distracted by something else. On the other hand, it had little effect on work processes. The ability of a concentration depends on the task and the degree of human motivation. And the accuracy of the survey raises a number of questionsSustained attention: less than that of a goldfish?.
Had time to get bored talking about klipovoy thinking is largely based on an analysis of modern information product, explaining the changes needs of viewers, although this may be due to trends in the industry of creating content. For example, this studyQuicker, faster, darker: Changes in Hollywood film over 75 years. It shows the average time gluing assembly in the films continuously reduced from 10 seconds to 1930 seconds to 4 seconds in the 2010s. It seems that the representatives of the film industry have learned to work effectively with the assembly and hold the attention of the viewer.
A curious fact: only now film speed closer to the experimental paintings Russian futurists of the 1920s, almost unknown to the general public, but very respected experts from the sphere of cinema.
In this case, it should be noted the desire constantly jump from channel to channel, that has less to do with poor concentration, but with the fact that our attention should be given all the new stimuli.
4. Pictures become for us a new letter
One of the most ancient forms of writing were pictographic - image of the object meant that very object. Disappeared for a few thousand years, in the XX century, it was revived in the form of navigation icons.
Later icons evolved into hieroglyphs - a letter with a formalized the mark of signs, where each glyph, depending on the context of certain coded word, part of a word or a complex concept. And although the characters figure is still imitated the real objects, their meaning can be quite different. For example, the character for "hills" in Egypt could designate a foreign country.
After a couple of thousands of ideographic script with us again. Now - as an emotional complement of writing, more precisely set the tone and context of the message. Emoji, Stickers, memes - all these new characters. For example, a news application Quartz uses Emoji and SIFCO to communicate with the user.
We communicate images, building a fairly complex narratives, as images often carry multiple nested contextual meanings, as once the characters.
In any messenger can be sent SIFCO or stickers instead of or in addition to the reports, all use Emoji. There is widely known stikerpaki and memes that operate massive contexts (see movies, characters), and niche intended for certain groups (programmers, journalists, Reddit users).
Properly chosen picture, relating us to a certain context, you can quickly and succinctly convey emotions set and express their attitude to something.
5. Information has become the building blocks for us
Technology gave everyone the opportunity to create, to create new data objects from scratch or by compiling them from existing. Each piece of information is considered by us as a brick, which we can use to construct their own narratives and meanings.
A fragment of the film, found or make your own photo, screenshot correspondence - everything becomes the basis for new communications.
User requirements sensitively captured software developers who wrote more than a dozen different programs and online services to generate memes, create simple compositions and rollers. A great example - Coub. This is one of the most popular services for creating your own the viral content by compiling the finished video and audio fragments.
We take data objects as bricks for the new posts, rather than as a finished unchanging things. Any fragment can become part of a new semantic collage.
6. We read a piece of information and diagonal
We do not have enough time and patience to consume content from and to. Studies show that web users no longer read in the usual sense of the word. They "crawl" the pageHow Users Read on the Web., Picking out individual words and sentences.
Widespread term «F-pattern"F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content (original study). - the principle by which web users often scan resources (attention to the first line and the beginning of the next revision). On the level of heat map is really resembles the letter F.
"Scanning" refers not only text information. We rewind videos, films and podcasts. As a result, the content that is read diagonally, created for such use.
This is reflected in the hard text structuring, split into fragments of content, navigation, or the introduction of an Advanced view video.
Many sites have started to implement navigation to the player, noting the slider significant places of video or audio or introducing them in a separate table of contents. Some go further and try to create new (obviously inspired Stories) Formats, such as this project by The New York Times.
Nevertheless, thoughtful reading is still with us, and, according to experts, played a big role in the development of thinkingOut of focus: how to change the reading in the digital age..
7. It is easier to handle abstractions
All turned to the interface. All information has become virtual. Physical media left in the past. Now, instead of disks, books, tapes and records we have of their virtual casts, informational concepts of things.
Interfaces go farther from the imitation of real objects in the direction of texts. The button "Delete" is no longer painted urn, and on the "Save" - floppy disk, only words. We immediately relate the written word to the effect that it will produce a virtual object.
Even the buttons no longer appear as a button. Almost everyone knows how to draw a simple hyperlink, almost everyone - a little programmer.
8. For us, all less than the difference between beauty and ugliness
Global access to the network made the call in on the distribution of all user rights. Anyone can broadcast in the information space of their own taste. As a result, we see the same number of beautiful and ugly.
Now, a key indicator - expression and information capacity, rather than beauty. Our range of aesthetic perception seriously expanded.
In search of new styles and modes of expression inspired by designers like modern technology (Cartoon, using random effects in a 3D-visualization software), and so low esthetics mass software (This video style plays earlier text and graphics editors).
What awaits us next?
Already trend has been reversed - a return to slow consumption (Slow TV), digital detox. All this - a reaction to the too fast for the human development of technology. It is unlikely to become mainstream, but will help us to find the balance between online and offline information and teach the conscious consumption.
In each new turn of evolution has its pluses and minuses, but people have always found ways to adapt to the changing reality. It is the same quality that has allowed us to evolve from stones and sticks to the spacecraft and the splitting of the atom. Especially interesting to see how we formed our changing information environment.