#slow technology

We found that participants felt a sense of responsibility, developed a reciprocal relationship, and experienced the organism’s growth as a source of affect.

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At one point without experimenter instruction, P2 added more dried physarum (which was provided as a backup) into the well to encourage growth, explaining that “they could support each another”.

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While she was sick, P5’s partner helped take care of her as well as helped to take care of her device. P5 recounts, “I was taking care of the slime and feeding it oats and stuff, my partner was also feeding me oatmeal because I was sick and so she was like you’re my little slime and I was like yeah, I am (. . .) then she started calling me her slime because I mean me and the slime, like, we were eating the same stuff, (. . .) we were both being fed and watered”

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What is slow technology? According to Photobox: On the Design of a Slow Technology, “creating technology that surrounds us and therefore is part of our activities for long periods.” After reading this assigned article regarding the design and implementation of Photobox, a device of slow technology meant to be used for years where it prints random pictures from the user’s Flickr gallery collection, I reflected on the amount of pictures I have in my phone and how there is a high probability I will not see some of them again. 

Surprisingly, I had no idea what slow technology was until now. After reading the concept that encouraged the design of slow technology, everything started making sense. It’s a simple and relevant idea I did not think about until the article brought it to light. I can say I take pictures daily, and after a while, there is a high possibility I will forget about the pictures I took a month ago. It’s a constant cycle where we are defining how meaningless digital photos will be in the future because there are so many, and it will be time-consuming to review all the photos taken. Unless you have no internet and the only thing left to do on your phone is take a look at your gallery. But the point is, it’s important to consider emerging technologies that will aim for the user to reflect on their photos over the years.

The long-term study of the Photobox explains how the three participants who used the Photobox for fourteen months experienced three phases: frustration, acceptance, and anticipation. They experienced frustration because they did not know when the pictures would come out. Still, they later came to terms with the importance of patience which helped them reflect on the experience of the photographs and the purpose of the Photobox. It’s incredible how frustration and disappointment had to happen primarily for the participants to anticipate and reflect on the emotions they experienced in the random printed images. An additional idea I reflected on during the discussion of this article was how randomness is not a good idea to have been included in this project because it can trigger unwanted memories the user may have in their gallery.

Check out this guys video of Civ 5, he mods the game so that the tech is so slow that you can actually make and use an army before they are obsolete or require upgrading.

I do not want to create explicit information that provides the user with guidelines and things to do and not to do.

My aim is to create implicit information that reflects on the behaviour of the user.