{"id":1180,"date":"2014-04-21T10:47:09","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T17:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/csclab\/?p=1180"},"modified":"2014-04-21T10:47:09","modified_gmt":"2014-04-21T17:47:09","slug":"the-language-of-non-use-of-not-doing-andor-doing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/csclab\/2014\/04\/the-language-of-non-use-of-not-doing-andor-doing\/","title":{"rendered":"The language of non-use: Of not-doing and\/or doing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Next week<\/del>\u00a0This weekend! I [with other CSC Lab folks Charlotte Lee and Ying-Yu Chen, with whom I co-authored another position paper<\/a>] am attending the CHI 2014 workshop\u00a0Refusing, Limiting, Departing: Considering Why We Should Study Technology Non-use<\/a>. Participants have been instructed to not-use some technology of our choice this week, and come to the workshop ready to discuss our experience. As I was making my To Do list this morning, I jotted\u00a0Figure out tech to fast<\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>then, thinking about all the work I had to do, and how easily I get derailed when I get online, I added\u00a0– Email before noon\u00a0<\/em>\u2605\u00a0\u2605. Once I started doing work, I wisely went back and added\u00a0\/Facebook<\/em>\u00a0to the list item:\u00a0Figure out tech to fast: – Email\/Facebook before noon\u00a0<\/i>\u2605\u00a0\u2605. I had a brief thought in a few minutes, while I was busy doing real work (coding interviews), that I wanted to looking online to briefly shop for something, like shoes, or something totally unrelated and unnecessary. At that point, I realized I wanted to add\u00a0General browsing<\/em>\u00a0to my list.<\/p>\n

I decided to make a notecard with my non-use decision\/goal for the week written on it, so I could display it on my desk:<\/p>\n

\"Disambiguating<\/a><\/p>\n

As you can see on these three cards, I’ve been struggling with the language of my goal. Do I resolve to not-do something? Is it totally outlawed, not allowed?\u00a0No X, Y, Z \u00a0before noon!<\/em>\u00a0Am I just “avoiding” it? No; I don’t want to use it. Am I resolving to\u00a0Work – Only purposeful work before noon<\/em>? Yes. I am also\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>doing email, Facebook, and general\/aimless browsing.<\/p>\n

I was struggling with whether I was making a decision to not-use technology, or to-do something else. I realize that I am resolving to do both, and that they are just twin sides of the same decision, a decision to be purposeful about my actions, complete with awareness about what purposefully acting means for what I do and what I don’t do.<\/p>\n

It all makes me think of the language of technology non-use, and of what I wrote in\u00a0my position paper for the workshop<\/a>\u00a0regarding the tech-centric focus of viewing a person as a\u00a0“<\/em>technology non-user.” As I said in my position paper, non-user is still built on the discursive formation that is “the user [of technology].” Certainly there are things to be learned by investigating why someone chooses not to use a particular technology or family of technologies. And no doubt sometimes the decision about what someone wants\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0to do is a primary decision after which other, potentially more profound or significant (or not), decisions follow.\u00a0Additionally<\/em>, though, people make decisions about things they want\u00a0to do<\/em>, doing-behaviors that necessarily preclude other doing-behaviors, turning the latter doing-behaviors into not-doing: non-using.<\/p>\n

Anyway, some take-aways:<\/p>\n