The first reading made me rethink what computing even is, because I feel like I’ve always thought of it as something very screen based, like typing, clicking, code on a laptop. But the way Tigoe describes it, starting from the body instead of the machine, kind of flips my idea completely. He says physical computing begins with “how humans express themselves physically,” and that idea stayed in my head because it makes computing feel less technical and more human which i really like actually. It’s not about controlling a computer, it’s about translating things like movement, light, or touch into something the computer can understand. I liked that shift, but at the same time it made me realize how limited most of our interactions with technology actually are. Like we’re so used to keyboards and screens, and we accept that as normal, even though it’s such a small part of how we actually exist in the world, especially alongside technology.
The second reading pushed my idea even further, especially when it talks about how computers usually only involve small, controlled movements, like just sitting and using your fingers, even though “that is not your whole life.” That line felt weirdly personal in a way because it made me think about how passive most digital interactions are. You’re just there, barely moving, and everything is basically just clicks. Physical computing on the other hand, is more about interactions like sensing and responding, almost like a conversation between the body and the system. I think what I liked about this reading is that it doesn’t treat technology as something separate from us and more as something that extends what we already do every day anyway. But at the same time, it also made me question whether we’ve gotten too used to limited forms of interaction, like we’ve accepted a very small version of what technology could actually be.
Putting both readings together, I felt like they were both kind of criticizing the way we already use technology without saying it directly. Both of them keep coming back to the idea that computers should connect more to the body, more to the real world, instead of staying stuck behind screens. And I think what made it interesting for me is that it made something like physical computing feel less like a special, hard field and more like what computing should have been all along. It kind of made everything else feel a bit limited in a way, like we’ve been interacting with technology in the smallest way possible when there was always, always more potential, which is kind of sad if you think about it.