Wrapped Attention

A summary of:

Walker, S. (2011) The Spirit of Design: Objects, Environment as well as Meaning, Earthscan/James & James Scientific Publishers, London.

Chapter 10 – Wrapped Attention: designing products for evolving permanence as well as enduring meaning

Stuart Walker provides a unlike 4^th bottom business to consider inwards the sustainable pattern debate: “personal meaning”. It is of import to note, firstly, that it seems specifically to exclude culturally shared meanings. This seems intentional, to supplement the electrical flow triple bottom line: “What is missing from the triple bottom business is explicit recognition that human beings are non alone gregarious creatures, but also individuals. Further still, nosotros are individuals who are meaning-seekers” (10.3). In other words, this 4^th chemical element absorbs a flake of the ‘spirituality’ that Inayatullah as well as others possess got proposed, inwards that it “[acknowledges] that sustainability has to live relevant as well as meaningful to the private person, every bit good every bit socially responsible” (10.3).

But at the same time, Walker’s assessment is a cultural one, as well as this quaternary chemical element addresses (perhaps secondarily) a shared worldview that he sees every bit beingness increasingly devoid of genuine meaning, as well as worse, erodes our commitment to shared social obligations: “The relevance of this quaternary chemical element becomes evident inwards lite of inquiry that suggests multitasking as well as partial attention, every bit are mutual inwards the exercise of electronic devices, tin possess got detrimental effects on behaviours as well as values related to social responsibility, environmental stewardship as well as noun notions of meaning” (10.2). Walker’s finish every bit a designer as well as academic is to exhibit that “more localized, to a greater extent than flexible, to a greater extent than enduring, as well as less socially as well as environmentally damaging” designs are possible, which are also “in closer accord with ideas of personal meaning” (10.2).

In this chapter, Walker identifies to a greater extent than or less worrying behaviors made possible past times – as well as de-elevation of traditional values brought virtually past times – electrical flow technological designs. In detail he highlights data overload as well as dissolving social bonds:

1) “information overload as well as multitasking tin adversely conduct upon our mightiness to live empathetic, ethically responsive, compassionate, as well as tolerant as well as to educate emotional stability—all traits that, traditionally, possess got been associated with the term ‘wisdom’. Our capacity for empathy, to live inspired, or to live ethically concerned has been linked to the slower acting parts of the encephalon that require fourth dimension to reverberate on the data received, as well as it is these parts that look to live circumvented when nosotros engage inwards multiple activities simultaneously. Prolonged periods of multitasking via technological products possess got also been linked to an increment inwards anxiety as well as depression as well as a reduction inwards attention, intellectual ability, as well as workplace productivity” (10.5).

2) “Despite offering ‘connection’, they possess got the final result of separating us from a similar a shot interaction with, as well as awareness of, our world, which serves to add together to our ‘blindness’. This separating final result also applies to our interactions with other people. Caller identification allows us to pick out with whom nosotros talk, as well as electronic mail enables us to command when as well as with whom nosotros communicate; this command increases the distance betwixt ourselves as well as the other—whether a friend or a stranger” (10.5).

Walker criticizes the irresponsibility of designers, as well as he questions whether making ‘stuff’ is itself a meaningful activity for designers to pursue. He argues that “if industrial pattern is to address these considerable challenges [e.g. sustainability], it needs to live reinvigorated through a novel feel of purpose” (10.6). This is my criticism just of technological developers: the mission seems devoid of purpose if it is just to do cool materials to distract us from reality.

This means, though, that nosotros possess got to enquire ourselves to a greater extent than or less hard questions. We possess got to challenge ourselves to pace exterior our familiar ways of thinking as well as doing; or inwards Walker’s words, ‘challenge our embedded notions’. In this chapter, Walker shows how this tin live done inwards relation to the mobile phone. We are all likewise familiar with the mobile telephone beingness a sure enough thing: a pocket-sized, plastic coated device that nosotros volition dispose of inwards a few years when it becomes outmoded. But nosotros are tacitly accepting a disclose of shortcomings: “We cannot select a telephone that is capable of beingness incrementally modified inwards damage of its parts every bit our needs change, or that nosotros tin update aesthetically from locally made, culturally relevant components. And nosotros cannot pick out alongside phones that are conceptually various inwards damage of how their functional benefits are manifested” (10.10). Phones, nosotros accept, are non sustainable. But hi – nosotros desire them. In guild to drib dead sustainable, the mobile telephone every bit nosotros know it would possess got to undergo considerable changes. It would possess got to:

1) evolve continuously

2) be maintained, repaired, as well as upgraded locally

3) foster to a greater extent than considered, less distracting exercise patterns

4) internalise impacts

Walker understands the naïveté of proposing nosotros just must all central our mobile phones for these completely reconceptualized phones. But the betoken he is making is that 1 of the cardinal flaws is that designers do non supply consumers with Choice. There are to a greater extent than or less for whom an assemble-it-yourself-as-needed Pouch Phone is appealing because it allows them to foster mindful practice. (This model was

in all likelihood inspired past times Borgmann’s notion of focal practices – the thought beingness to brand using the telephone “a focused activity” (10.14)). But the key to providing Choice is that this selection is Real, which is to tell viable. As Walker shows inwards this chapter, it is possible: “The concepts presented hither suggest a unlike human relationship with technological goods past times proposing a direction that is non alone to a greater extent than compatible with the principles of sustainability but also facilitates a to a greater extent than considered exercise - 1 that is inwards accord with notions of inner meaning” (10.17).

Just for fun, hither are to a greater extent than or less interesting alternative mobile telephone designs. These are aimed at increasing privacy, but some, similar the Pentaphone, must accidentally create focused attending when using.