As part of my work (which there is none in HK as its all shifted to Singapore regionally) We use anthropological methodologies to uncover insights into human nature, intent, behaviour and so forth. As we spend more time facing screens the emerging field of digital anthropology is gaining credence. Mostly (at the moment) the topic du jour is UX or user experience and it's this which is most interesting on the link provided. It's a slice of how we viewed both ourselves and the way we interact with what was then termed multimedia (an expression which has more validity now but has fallen out of favour)
So.... Looking at the content of the link and how it was laid out, along with the content itself it's probably as good an example of two formerly unknowns looking at each other. Humans and computers with the content in between. I could go on but the best quote I can think of is that we view technology through the lens of the preceding disruptive technology. Television is the new radio and so forth which is why it takes some time to really allow a technology to breath.
The internet is still only a few thousand days old and we're all just beginning to understand just a glimpse of the ways that it can facilitate basic human needs. The need to make contact, social grooming (Facebook pokes et al) facilitate work, collaborate and so on. This is why it's easy to for misunderstanding to emerge quite quickly. Me typing this out on text is cumbersome now and frankly I'd rather switch the webcam on and just rattle off a few paragraphs along with hand gesticulation but having said that, typing still has it's place as superior means of communication. Just not right now really.
One more digital anthropology observation is that it's not until a technology becomes so common place and ubiquitous that we stop talking about it do we really see it come into its own. Thus we don't talk about electricity anymore because we just assume it's there. The millennials are an interesting bunch as opposed to Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y because they are almost oblivious to the rolling narrative that we all went through to get this far...speaking for myself..dial up modems, modem cards, mirc and so forth but I see we're still using a BBS format for this because it works...however Twitter is the baby even if Google is the Daddy. One can easily anticipate the whole island on Twitter and using it in ways nobody could conceive of but in terms of self organising group and non hierarchical control it's fantastic and pretty much diminishes the need to moderate a site which is why earlier comments about Lamma.org baffled me. It's a landing site from Twitter that makes sense and I certainly would be putting more than an hour or two into any upkeep.
It's not about top down control any more as my friend recently wrote over in Canada. We need to lose that mindset because the scale of problems we are facing are too huge and fast moving to have command and control. Read this and see why.
http://bit.ly/1jrWVE
You'd all done a splendid job of keeping this place vibrant and it wont go away but the need to have something more UX friendly and real time contextually relevant along with mobile integration is just a matter of time. Though looking at the demographics of this island it might take longer than the visitors who I see are much more into the tools I'm using and enjoying. I have a tweet search on my tweetdeck which means that a lot of digital photography by visitors on the island is immediately uploaded and i"m alerted. It's fun and its useful. However I'm still adamant that 'meat space' is the most immersible media possible and why I prefer to meet people than type away what is often being totally misunderstood, because as the original anthropologists have discovered most communication is phatic....i.e. non language driven. Gestural you might say. Hard to believe but a few minutes of real life more than makes up for all these words I just typed.
The revolution will not be televised it will be twittered. You can count on it.
Right, can I get off the naughty boy corner now?
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