Calm technology: Can designers and technologists help people become calmer in the face of growing pressures on humanity?
8 Comments Published by Sanjay Khanna July 7th, 2008 in Calmness, Clarity, Climate Change, Global Warming, Macroeconomics, Survival, Sustainability, Technology"The worse things get the more delusional we’ll get because that’s what we do in crises: we get delusional."
- James Howard Kunstler, from No Impact Man blog
It's an anxious time. As a collective, humanity doesn't know how the macroeconomic situation will evolve, nor is it certain whether action on a large-enough scale to limit the impact of climate change is practical. What is known, however, is that the material foundation underpinning 60 years of postwar experience is crumbling, and there are no institutional efforts on a massive scale to shore it up.
The future will be different in ways we don't want it to be.
So championing slowing down-just when it would seem that time is of the essence-might seem counterintuitive.
Yet slowing down is an ancient adaptive response to learning both practical and spiritual lessons from crises, whether personal or global. For example, one aim of meditation-which is itself a structured process of slowing down-is to develop calmness, a quality that fosters, among other things, sane decision-making under duress. Calmness supports reflection, which in turn makes it possible to sharpen priorities, to allow positive thoughts to take root and, in time, to support more compassionate responses to the problems of self and world.
As a designer or a technologist, one implication of deciding that calmness is much needed in today's world might well be an abiding interest in creating tech-based solutions that help people become calmer.
When the late Mark Weiser of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) coined the term "calm technology," that is, in part, what he had in mind. Weiser was formulating a concept of technology that would encalm, extending the unconscious, making people smarter by informing intuition. He was proposing, in essence, a solution for addressing the overwhelming deluge of information precipitated by the start of the personal computing era. He and others at PARC viewed the icon-based desktop metaphor as structurally incapable of adapting to massive, PC-based information flows of emails and documents because, in part, the traditional user interface kept technology in the foreground, rather than the background, where he thought it should recede.
But there's an ethical dimension related to improving already-potent technology that's harnessed widely in the service of power: Could calm technology, by Weiser's definition, conceivably inform an intuition about anything, say, the development of a novel method of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? (Yes.) Did Weiser intend for individuals, companies or governments to use calm technology as a way to accomplish atrocious acts with peace of mind-acts that would be more stressful in a traditional, icon-metaphor-based, PC environment? (I think not.)
Nevertheless, bearing in mind the ethical caveat of not applying calm technology towards activities that would predictably cause distress elsewhere, designers and technologists may wish to evaluate whether there's a need for interactive applications that help people become calmer as a way to adapt to, and to overcome-almost as a kind of anti-anxiety tool-feelings of panic that will start to set in as the weather continues to become more threatening, as the economy continues its process of disintegration, and as geoengineering our way out of global warming appears increasingly unrealistic. Also, they might ascertain whether there's a need for calm technology that helps people who may be prone to losing hope to be supported in their ability to do good things with the life they have.
After all, to make the most humane decisions we can under material conditions never before seen on the planet (at least at such massive scale), we'll need to keep in store as much calmness as possible for as many people as we can.
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8 Responses to “Calm technology: Can designers and technologists help people become calmer in the face of growing pressures on humanity?”
- 1 Pingback on Jul 13th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
- 2 Pingback on Jan 15th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Sanjay,
Thx for your calming insights. It’s good to know that there’s someone thinking broadly about the effects that accelerated change is having (and will have) on both the individual and social psyche–and reminds us of how we might mitigate mass panic and chaos by cultivating our capacity to calmly and intelligently face our fears and the realities that are feeding them. we may not be able to change much about the future we face, but as you point out, whatever that is, it will require both hardheaded thinking and immense compassion if our species is to survive with our humanity intact. and what would be the point of surviving without it?
keep up the good work.
JJ
I liked this update because calmness for me has always equated with sanity. Gets to the core of what your website is all about. And I found it heartening that people are working on technologies which support calmness. There really is such a thing as too much information. So I think there is lots of room for technologies support calmness without making us idiots. I suggest that wisdom is going to be key to prevent people from receiving a sanitized and deluded view of the world. So I’m going to say that in order for calm technology to be beneficial it is going to have to be developed with a sense of what makes us human, and I dare say, humane. And we are all different are we not? so that means infinite flexibility.
JJ and Olivier–Thanks for your comments.
JJ–Keeping as much of our humanity as possible in the midst of whatever comes is our challenge, I think; thank you for articulating that so well.
Olivier–I agree there’s lots of room for designers and technologists to help us cultivate calmness. It’s a question of method, and also of what we do with the calmness we develop. A sense of what makes us human and humane would be a terrific start to any exploration of how interactive technologies could help. Any tips on where to begin?
if you really hasd somethig to teach about calm you would not write about it being an anxious time, because you simply wouldn’t see it that way.. you sound more like a marketing guy the way you do it
Thanks for your comment.
First, I am not teaching about calmness. I’m raising it as an issue that is becoming a matter of public health concern and worsening mental health statistics.
Second, one has to work with reality. It doesn’t make sense to say that anyone who did teach about calmness wouldn’t acknowledge the fact of global panic. It’s there in the reports of clinical psychologists, in the daily workings of the stock market, in the sales of Big Pharma (anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medications sales are through the roof). In fact, the “anxious time” I refer to is a logical outcome of an economy whose markets play on the psychology of abundance, scarcity and desire, and are creating worsening environmental conditions. (Come to think of it, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, spoke last November of the global panic, and wrote that there was a danger that many would succumb to the fear of the impact of global climate change before its full effects were felt. I think that this venerable monk, unlike me, actually does have something to teach about calmness.)
To your second point, I’m a marketing guy, at least sometimes. Which would explain why I might sound like one. Good luck.
"Calm technology" interesting concept. In architecture, and art beauty is probably creates calming effect. Like riding the bike slower can create calming effect, using technology slower can be occupying.
I wonder if the concept of realistic sanctuary can be applied to Human Resources, human capital management. What do you think?