I’d specifically like to read something about the sociological, cultural, and hell, sociocultural implications of the grand shift from analog to digital technology. I don’t just mean computing, microprocessors, and computers, and their integration in daily life, although that’s certain part of the whole thing.
In the space of about 15 years we went from all-analog interfaces and interactions to nearly all-digital ones; the changes were as subtle as people using digital clock radios and wristwatches and as grand and sweeping as people using credit cards instead of cash and the government and businesses using computers to keep track of everything vs. record books. All of these changes had a profound effect on things on a cultural and social level, as well as a million micro-effects. What happens when people start using click buttons instead of rotary dials for every day tasks? What happens to us when we start doing things, no matter how minor (such as selecting a radio station frequency) in discrete steps instead of dialing them in with analog controls? etc. etc. etc.
It’s a good idea for a book, and if I was an editor at a major publishing house I’d steal your idea and look for an author to write it. My short list would include:
But there are lots of cases where the analog interface is so compelling that a lot of money is spent retaining it. For instance, most computer music and sound software incorporates a skeuomorphic interface that mimics analog devices like knobs and needle meters. But yes, in general memory is cheap and knobs are expensive, so two or three buttons and an LCD display will replace any number of knobs, switches and sliders.
I don’t think this is quite what you’re looking for, as it’s a meta-level kinda thing, but here goes:
Back in '98, I took a grad-level philosophy course on complex systems in which part of the assigned reading were selections from Power and Invention, a collection of essays by Isabelle Stengers. It’s one of the few books that I regret selling…I’ll only sell a book if I despise it, and oh how I despise (most) continental philosophy. At the time, I thought it was crap; perhaps exactly because of that, it stuck with me as I mulled it over from time to time, and I’ve since come to really appreciate it.
IIRC, the particular essay was Of Paradigms and Puzzles, which traced the historical scientific metaphors we use to talk about the world. The two examples that I remember were: (1) understanding a city via biology (people coursing through the streets, aka it’s “life blood”) and (2) the whole “mind as computer” schtick (and I say “schtick” as a proponent of strong A.I.). Of course, it’s that last that brought it to mind, but the digital/analog divide is only tangential, at best.
Before you go out and purchase it, though, I have to say: it was very dense reading. (Did I mention how much I despise continental philosophy?) I think that if you really delved into the subject area, you’d likely find a (small) number of philosophy people writing about it. But I’m not all that well-versed in the area, so I don’t have any other suggestions to make.
Even so, I have to wonder whether you’d be able to find something like this from someone researching in HCI or HRI (human-computer/robot interaction). Not so much from the “design guidelines” perspective, but from the “impact of technology” view. Someone like Sherry Turkle, I guess. Maybe you’d find something close to what you’re looking for on the Edge website.
If you ever do come across this type of book, please open a thread – it’s a (potentially) very interesting subject.
It’s also not exactly what you are looking for but pick up Neil Postman’s Technopoly. It’s more of a discussion on the death of the written word and the acquisition of vast amounts of information without context. He also discusses how technology is evolving so rapidly that naturally occurring social regulation has no way of keeping up. Other technologies like the printing press were the apex of technology long enough for societies to evolve around them and regulate their uses.
Here’s a short quote from Technopoly for a taste.
“Information has become a form of garbage, not only incapable of answering the most fundamental human questions but barely useful in providing coherent direction to the solution of even mundane problems.” (Postman, 1992. p.69)
This book and his Amusing Ourselves to Death talk mostly about television, but obviously have a great deal of relevance in the digital world. His work is also studied in many university logic classes for his impeccable argumentation form.
I could not even start to explain how influential his work has been to my own world view.
I guess a book about the shift was done already, but it seems we are missing the “engaging” part.
The Book Digital Deli, did engage me with an anarchy of design and articles that now feel like a time capsule (since this was 1984 the internet was not yet in the public consciousness) but the book deals mostly with the arriving technologies, not the shift.
An interesting bit that could be part of a book on the shift to analog to digital is this article in the Digital Deli book that mentions how the sounds of nature got to be enhanced and/or recreated digitally.
Those recordings then were a hit with students seeking help in concentrating for tests or just for relaxing, and the professor sold the rights to Environments Disc One to Atlantic Records and retired for a while.
The twist here is that since digital CDs had just been released, the market share for the compact disk was very small still, so the recording was released in analog vinyl!
There’s a book called being digital by Nicholas Negroponte, published in 1995 and some of the text appeared in Wired magazine (I think before the book was published). Some of it is outdated, but mostly it was amazingly farsighted.
“Here Comes Everyone” by Clay Shirky is a recent and engaging book. He makes the point that technology only becomes socially interesting when it becomes technologically boring and we’re currently in a shift right now where things like blogging and social networks are radically redefining organizing and collective action.