On an upcoming episode of Spark, we’re going to explore the short bursts of information that seem to be so popular these days. What is it about the brevity of Twitter or Facebook status messages that’s so appealing? In other words, are human beings wired for bite-sized communication?
To talk about this, Nora interviewed Hannu Ripatti. Hannu is a designer based in Helsinki, Finland, and he’s one of the creators of IOBR, a social media device for toddlers.
A shorter version of this interview will air on Spark 135, but you can hear the full, uncut interview below, or download the MP3. [runs 10:28]
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IOBR sounds very similar to the technology "pointers" (a.k.a. toddlers) use in the final chapter of Jennifer Egan's (fantastic) novel A Visit from the Goon Squad. Egan very realistically imagines a not-too-distant future where toddlers use iPod Touch-like devices to buy products and download songs.
I think I'm a bit sceptical of this interview.
There is a set of twins that I, as a non-parent, am helping to raise. They are 3y4months old, a boy and a girl.
When they were toddlers I was fascinated how they picked up on some technology, such as a doll that played multiple songs you could flip to by pressing the hand the right number of times. At that age the girl could "click" the right number of times to get back to that single song amongst all the songs that she always wanted to hear again and again.
Recently we were playing a "whack a mole" game. The idea that there were 4 moles, and that the 4 of us (the twins + my wife and I) would hit the mole in front of us when it lit up, didn't seem to be there. Our boy would hit any of them and hit them hard, which was all fun but not quite the point of the multi-player game.
I'm sceptical of the idea of a toy for toddlers that communicates to some other toddler about what they are doing, and the idea that this would in any way communicate or encourage behaviour. The lights flashing are likely perceived as random and irrelevant, and this just comes down to placing the right block into the matching hole when certain things are being done in the day — something that appears to come quite naturally.
Patterns are huge at this age it seems. And if you want to have bedtime or other things at a different time, you find out just how much they hate changing a pattern. There are some families that don't have these types of schedules, but my limited observations have been that the preschool kids in that situation also appear to lash out at seemingly "random" times more often as well.
I guess I advocate the flip side of this: I like how their parents limit "screen time", whether that be on the computer (or my mobile phone), or television. The less "consumer" of the content of others, and the more participatory, the more they in my mind have a chance to really learn the important things.
are human beings wired for bite-sized communication?
Yea, I think the mind is capable of understanding bite-sized communication, though not initially wired for complex bite-sized communications. There was an interesting program on Radio Australia yesterday about how the concept of “left of the blue wall” does not exist in humans until like 6 yrs or so, the concept of “blue wall” and “left” are understood but their combined meaning is not understood until the age of 6 y/o or so, when language develops.
RadioLab http://www.radiolab.org/2010/aug/09/
“It’s almost impossible to imagine a world without words. But in this hour of Radiolab, we try to do just that.
We meet a woman who taught a 27-year-old man the first words of his life, hear a firsthand account of what it feels like to have the language center of your brain wiped out by a stroke, and retrace the birth of a brand new language 30 years ago.”
TJ