“A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design” and the follow-up article:
At the beginning of the reading, right after I watched the video, I was skeptical of the point the author is trying to make. However, as I read through the entire article, I started nodding my head and agreeing with everything the author was saying. Coincidentally, right before I read the article, I was practicing the violin. Because I hadn’t touched the violin in almost 6 months, my hands were “out of shape,” and I had forgotten to warm up before I started playing. So obviously, after a few minutes, my hands started cramping. In the past 11 years of my life, this was the longest break I have taken from playing the violin, so I felt that my hands were communicating with me through the pain and reflecting my unconscious sadness that I have abandoned one of my favorite hobbies for that long. Reading the article made me aware of the emotions we feel when we use our hands to do basic things, from brushing our teeth to playing the violin. I realize our hands are not just a body part we use to do things but rather a part of who we are—an important sense that makes us more aware of ourselves and our emotions somehow. I realize that replacing the use of our hands with a touch of a button or using voice control like Siri or Alexa affects our emotions and makes us numb to the feelings we naturally have.
After I finished reading the article, I asked myself when this article was written, and to my surprise, I found out that it was written 12 years ago. I started thinking back to 2011 and realized that when this article was written, the iPhone 4s had just been released, and the iPad was only out for a year. I wonder what the author thinks now. Unfortunately, the point the author was trying to make has become the reality we live every day. We all carry small glass screens in our pockets that control every single aspect of our lives. And yes, most children are now glued to iPads instead of playing with toys and running around their neighborhood playgrounds. In the response the author wrote, he mentioned that there are ultimately two functionalities that are changing: creating and understanding. He mentions that we cannot create with the use of technology because technology lacks creativity and emotion, but it can be an aid to help us understand stuff. This got me thinking about AI and how people are using ChatGPT to create, understand, and basically everything else. How can we control the advancement of technology so that it doesn’t take over our lives and change us to lifeless robots? Will our future really look like the video? How can we stop it before it’s too late?