Grant Types Sometimes

Category: Tech

  • The Glut.

    Caveat: frivolous in the wake of everything else happening across the globe.

    A pal tweeted this the other day, and it’s stuck with me:


    I’ve been living with post-concussion symptoms for about five years now. To regulate my symptoms, I have to make an effort to manage visual concentration time–driving, watching TV, reading, computer work–you know, the good stuff. This necessitates something of a utilitarian approach to leisure activities. Suddenly, there’s a lot more of an opportunity cost to getting lost down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, or to taking a bunch of photos (who wants to blow out their brain cells on hours of editing?). Among other things, it has made me cognizant of the ridiculous amount of time that I, as a single dude, kept whiling away on dumb random internet surfing and garbage television before this whole thing was a concern.

    It has also bred a maximalist impulse that made me initially feel Colin’s question was pretty lopsided. When you only have so many minutes per day and the deluge of new media is unending, of course you should be trying the new stuff. Dumb question, beardy. Yet I find that this has also skewed and lessened my reading experience in particular. There is so much I want to read that I sometimes find myself trying to race through books without really properly digesting or appreciating them. Likewise, using Goodreads and thus introducing metrics and an element of ‘the quantified self’ can end up making the experience itself less meaningful. The fact–and the math–of the situation is that it’s simply impossible to keep up.  

    As chronicled in the Streaming Wars series Colin hosts, there’s an utter deluge of premium, brooding, grimdark, self-serious television programs. Not only does it start to feel homogenous, but it’s kind of exhausting. Why am I wasting my life on a television show that “doesn’t get good until season 2”? It’s made me appreciate shows like The Mandalorian that are packaged tightly and don’t overstay their welcome. Here’s where Colin’s quandary is a lot more evident. In the face of this firehose of new content and the decision paralysis or mental effort of sifting through all of it, the lure of rewatching old favourites or dipping into the candy confection of short, simple YouTube videos starts to become a lot more powerful, and a lot more sensible.

    The issue (such as it is) of overwhelm and decision paralysis is probably going to get worse before it gets better. Books like Cal Newport’s “Digital Minimalism” and Jenny Odell’s “How to do Nothing” pick at the rationale and promote the benefits for stepping back from things like social media. Somewhat paradoxically, I find some of the experts make the point that we need to select our digital/cultural activities with more intention, but schedule blocks of time that are without intention–time for proverbially stopping to smell the roses or strolling in the park. Based on my readings about mindfulness and my own experiences, I can see the merits. For various reasons, I often have that maximalist, completionism impulse when it comes to constantly trying to get through my glut of podcasts or the latest audiobook that I’m picking away at. But constantly shoveling someone else’s thoughts into your brain doesn’t exactly feel healthy either. You do need to turn off the spigot of content and be more mindful from time to time.

    tl;dr – we should try new things, but be more choosy about it, and accept that it’s a fool’s errand to try to keep up with it all. There’s also nothing wrong with revisiting old favourites (especially during a stressful time like the pandemic), but we should probably carve out a little more time to do nothing instead of just revisiting old content for the sake of whiling away time.

  • The Kindler, Gentler Web?

    In the midst of configuring their new desktop, my parents decided we should embark on that most perilous of quests: sifting through the e-waste and detritus that tends to sneakily accrue when you’ve used the same computer desk since the 386 era.

    Amidst the usual outdated instruction manuals, deprecated cable connectors, irrelevant media formats, and laughably small antique thumb drives, there were a few retro gems. Foremost among them was the setup and welcome packet from Bell’s Sympatico dialup service, its 1990’s provenance betrayed by its swooshy Screen Bean aesthetics and a shouty “THIS IS A COMPUTER PRODUCT” jumble of typefaces scattered throughout it.

    The front cover of the Sympatico user manual/CD jacket.

    As you might expect, this artifact from four desktops and four regional Bell corporate rebrandings ago offered nostalgia and some laughs. What I didn’t anticipate was how earnest and, in retrospect, naïve it was. Many of the basic selling points employed by our ISP’s haven’t changed–connect to family and friends, find entertainment, stay informed, etc.–but it feels like the way we talk about the internet has.

    Description of the Sympatico dialup service.

    “The global electronic community known as the Internet is not owned or controlled by a single company. It is a collaboration between companies, communities and countries…”

    In today’s world of internet giants, pervasive tracking, and the balkanization created by geoblocking, filtering, and expansive subscription services, that declarative statement feels almost subversive to me. I’m sure part of it is just positioning or explanation meant to differentiate a true dialup service from what AOL was at the time, but it’s also a validation of what the internet was supposed to be. Even things like describing the community as “warm, friendly and comfortable” feels a little out of place. Today’s social networks talk about connection and position themselves as the centre of the discourse, but it’s rarer for them to truly advertise or touch upon basic friendliness.

    The old Sympatico homepage with labels.

    “We think you (meaning kids) need a place where you can go to talk about your concerns” 

    The “Kids do Care” section also stood out to me. Obviously, there were abundant perils for children on the internet then, and there certainly are now. However, today, we praise kids for being technological savants while decrying them for ‘being glued to their devices’. As we fret about cyberbullying, sexting, overexposure, etc., there’s a bit more of a concern for what kids are doing and what is influencing them rather than what they actually feel. It seems odd to imagine a presumably heartless telecom saying “We think you (meaning kids) need a place where you can go to talk about your concerns” as one of the first things you’ll see when your modem stops screeching.

    In many respects, the internet is more of a public square and more of a utility than ever–the United Nations’ Human Rights Council considers it to be a basic human right. However, perhaps the pervasiveness and (relative) seamlessness of internet access in much of Canada means that we don’t put thought into what it’s actually made of and what we should be doing on the internet as individual actors.