Interface - Reality check: How does it affect us?
We are constantly interacting with interfaces because communication in the 21st century happens over your smartphone, tablet, notebook or another device at hand. We prefer at times to ‘interface’ with each other using What´s app while sitting at a table. #storybehindthekeyword #perception
The technical user interface has become not just a form of translating between technical structures and humans but between humans themselves serving as the actual point of contact transforming human interaction. #participation
Mapping your Facebook friends is a popular App by the Social Media Network itself offering to show you as a user your circle of friends mapped out. But how transparent is this visualisation of your social presence on Facebook? I am not getting at the discussion of real friends versus virtual friends on the platform but to the interface itself that is presented to you. Your data that you put into the network is supposedly prettily put together to show your social relations. What you won’t find on the map is the one point of direct connection you probably would not realise as your single direct relation, which is to Facebook itself. Your single way of access to the platform is displayed by your profile and with whom do you communicate then? #communication
Well, the answer would be Facebook. The Interface leads us to believe that we are indeed chatting and sharing with our friends or also online connections, but we are not even communicating directly with their profiles. The programmed code producing the Facebook website functions as an interface between the technical infrastructure receiving, storing and passing on our stream of data, while the platform is the one providing access and also denying it if wanted8. #blackbox
Therefore, the interface by its design and functions hides a multitude of controlling mechanisms letting us believe that we are connecting to friends instead of a programmed platform that symbolizes our only direct interaction. Imagine for yourself how your personal map of friends would look like now. #lifestyle
(8) http://www.nachtkritik.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11470:beyond-the-spectacle-imperative-the-change-actor-in-the-digital-age-by-nishant-shah&catid=101:debatte&Itemid=84
The technical user interface has become not just a form of translating between technical structures and humans but between humans themselves serving as the actual point of contact transforming human interaction. #participation
Mapping your Facebook friends is a popular App by the Social Media Network itself offering to show you as a user your circle of friends mapped out. But how transparent is this visualisation of your social presence on Facebook? I am not getting at the discussion of real friends versus virtual friends on the platform but to the interface itself that is presented to you. Your data that you put into the network is supposedly prettily put together to show your social relations. What you won’t find on the map is the one point of direct connection you probably would not realise as your single direct relation, which is to Facebook itself. Your single way of access to the platform is displayed by your profile and with whom do you communicate then? #communication
Well, the answer would be Facebook. The Interface leads us to believe that we are indeed chatting and sharing with our friends or also online connections, but we are not even communicating directly with their profiles. The programmed code producing the Facebook website functions as an interface between the technical infrastructure receiving, storing and passing on our stream of data, while the platform is the one providing access and also denying it if wanted8. #blackbox
Therefore, the interface by its design and functions hides a multitude of controlling mechanisms letting us believe that we are connecting to friends instead of a programmed platform that symbolizes our only direct interaction. Imagine for yourself how your personal map of friends would look like now. #lifestyle
(8) http://www.nachtkritik.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11470:beyond-the-spectacle-imperative-the-change-actor-in-the-digital-age-by-nishant-shah&catid=101:debatte&Itemid=84
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