From our previous week’s reading, we have learnt that behaviours are learnt, adapted and shaped by the forces of our environment. Thus, people behave differently in different countries, and designers have to find different methods to communicate in different countries. I recall his next chapter on how we must walk through the actual place to have the rue in-depth understanding of the affordances, signifiers and hidden affordances of each place, sign and action.
“it never left her sight. Whats more, it never left her grasp…”
Through Jan’s story of Meili, who is consciously in a high state of awareness of the security of her bag, we learn that environmental causes results in may a change in action. For example, a place high in theft would cause people to be more wary about their precious belongings. This notion of protecting their own things calls in the debate of ownership; If we never carry around anything tangible, will the risk of theft still be present?
Jan shows us the example transferring paychecks to SIM cards in Afghanistan. Without receiver physical money, the paycheck goes to the recipient straight, without the threat of thievery via the middleman. The idea, though helpful, did not work out as planned, as recipients began to cash out immediately because they felt no sense of ownership over their money.
It seems to me that humans are stuck between the tangibility of ownership– to own something, people still feel the need to see it, to be reassured of its tangibility. This attitude is reflected in how we express ourselves– for something to be truly representative or a part of who we are, we have to make it a visible part of ourselves. In daily life, we are faced with many symbols of status. Branded products help to increase our social standing and social associations. However, displaying such products leaves us susceptible to the risk of theft or robbery. Jan Chipchase brought out the example of how apple airpods became very high targets of theft. This brings us back to our original point on tangibility.
Personally, I feel that this attitude and obsession with the tangible creates an inherent struggle which prevents us from progressing to a less object-oriented society. As Jan Chipchase puts it, there is no risk of theft if there’s no ownership. In addition, a less object-oriented society would allow us to share items, due to their lack of ownership. This ubiquity would then allow us to carry less things, thus streamlining our lives and having less things to carry and be weighed down by.
Due to environmental limitations, or simply for the sake of maximizing efficiency or even due to the human laziness, the stuff we are willing to carry are gradually becoming lesser. “use more while owning less”- if we create things with universal affordances, communal objects born will bring about benefit to the large part of the population.
This is evidently the direction that the modern world wishes to proceed in, as seen from the rise of eBook or music cloud sharing services, where books and music are no longer trapped within the confines of their physical selves, and can now be shared ubiquitously without the constrain of ownership.
