( Empty ) Technology

Bill Thompson has a nice post on how people adapt to technology, thinking about the purpose of the Apple iPad, and ending with the line: “let’s not call them ‘computers’.”

This use of language deserves more attention.

What is “a computer”? Is it the screen? The hardware? The software? The functions that all of these offer in combination? The Internet? The bugs?

Is a phone a computer? Is a freeview box?

The language used in and around computing is fascinating precisely because it is something invented, talking about something that is invented. We, as a tech industry, create not just objects, but function. We innovate not just in the realm of things but in actions. The “iPad” is not as important as what it lets “you” (or certain users) do.

But in creating these functions (and these objects) we also give them names. A bit like the way we use names for different cooking techniques – “saute”, “fry”, “par-boil”, etc.

At first, mapping these names to functions – and then carrying out the functions – is a difficult process, involving learning, trial and error, and re-adjustment.

Now imagine having to relearn how to cook every 5 years, because someone, somewhere, in a world well removed from your own, had “discovered” new techniques (or, more probably, tweaked existing ones). Suddenly all recipes switched to using terms such as “frycassee” (is that different to fricasee?), or “mor-boil”.

Would you bother with the new recipes, or would you stick to the old ones that you know, can make easily, and taste perfectly good?

The key thing here is about the effort it takes to learn new phrases – even, or especially if they either don’t mean anything substantially new or different, or (more frustratingly) nobody else knows what they mean either.

OK, linguistic hurdles aren’t unique to the technical realm. But it is the realm in which we most closely tie them to “things that the user is expected to do”. In this case, language becomes blackmail, a key that you need to have access to in order to use the system.

The geeks’ secret is that we know language means nothing – or that language only means things in context. Code makes things work, but only when pumped through a certain compiler. More abstract terms such as “the cloud”, or even technical terms in a technical/non-technical context (when does it matter if you use the term “picture” rather than “jpeg”, “png”, or “picture file”?) loosely get ignored, or get loosely defined, and made more concrete on a “need to know” basis.

But that doesn’t help those who don’t want to know.