How Human Availabilities have been faced with the Digital Evolution ?
Here is a small resume from my thesis at Strate — School of Design I just made this year.
Enjoy!
Talking about human availabilities with an “s”, presents lot more advantages. Too often considered as a singular, availability brings an essentialist vision as universal evidence.
Our availability includes four fully-fledged components. Our physical availability, “I am present therefore I live”. Our psychological availability, “I think therefore I am”. Our individual availability, “I am aware to be part of the world”. And finally, our relational availability, “Each one of us exists in relation to one another”.
In pursuing my thesis in Interaction Design at Strate, I have attempted to demonstrate that our disposition to feel conveys new experiences.
That silence is an essential element to consider in being more available to others.
That the constructions of relationships henceforth operate between moments of presence and absence. Where the most important aspect is to fill up absent moments by weaving a guiding thread, enabling one to offset the negative effects of separation.
We are also witnessing a linear acceleration in our way of living, which has lead to an unprecedented “compression of the present”. Where the number of actions happening in the same time frame hasn’t stopped increasing. This acceleration in our lifestyles is operated by a sociocultural acceleration, where functional differentiation takes all its meaning. Driven by technological acceleration, this new way of living imposes an unprecedented numbing. Exposed to confusing multitasking environments, we rely; more and more, on machines for decision-making, hoping in vain that one’s time will be lightened.
It is thanks to the “augmented” availability that we now dispose of, that we achieve our tasks. At first sight in a world where digital was not taken into consideration, Anew availability came as a burden and synonym of more complexity: our digital availability.
When the digital invasion occurred on the primary component of our availability, we started feeling “over-available” via its metaphors and experienced the unpleasant disturbance of numerous notifications.
When new modes of operations like Blockchain appear; when market shares (which refer to users of the digital world) evolve from an economic dimension to a social and human dimension.
Where Innovation is driven by new forces like the respect of privacy and freedom of speech. Where introduction of debates and sharable ideas take place in a “public space”.
And where the respect of each human being’s availability prevails above instant notifications.
Is it still conceivable to believe in digital humanism?
Descartes’ quote “I think therefore I am”, and that of the humanist psychologist “I participate therefore I am”, can now be replaced by a new statement: “I am connected therefore I am.”
Let us give this new digital ME a chance to flourish, no longer in a perverted or predefined digital world but in a real humanistic digital world where one’s availability to others is now augmented.
Want more?
If you resonated with these ideas, you can follow me on Twitter, Dribbble, Behance & Pinterest.
you can email me at: micka.touillaud@me.com
I will get a free copy of my thesis The Cult of Availability, which blends ideas from sociology, psychology, and a strong technology criticism and will teach you about:
- Digital acceleration
- Blockchain principle
- Immersion and alerts in our digital world
- & much more!
I have a last gift for you today.A compilation of infographies I’ve made on 250 people!
Thanks for reading!
Micka.
