How to Frame the Internet II: Entertainment and Culture Post iPad

Mainstream since the 50s, but rarely used since the early 80s craze, 3D is now expected of every major movie these days.

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Why? You can’t download 3d glasses, let alone an IMAX theater. It’s the staging of an event, a singular experience. Something that cannot be so easily replicated at home.

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Likewise, in 2008, I wrote a post How to Frame the Internet, calling for the staging of events online:

The problem I see in terms of editing online content seems to be the absence of “frames.” Time frames as well as frames as a metaphor: ways of segmenting information so it doesn’t overlap with other content or ideas, complementary or not. Creating scarcity when there is abundance and understanding how to work with the desire that grows in anticipation of something.

I can’t remember the comedian — I want to say someone Saturday Night Live affiliated — but he was making a point about repetition in sketch comedy. You tell a joke once and it’s funny (well, sometimes, in the case of SNL.) Tell it again, it’s not funny. Tell it a third time it’s funny again. The next several times it’s really not funny, but if you keep repeating it after ten times and keep going, each of those times the joke is funny (this is, of course, a total perversion of the law of diminishing marginal returns.)

Art filmmakers are aware of the boredom they inflict when they hold a certain shot just a moment too long. Horror films especially are cruel games of anticipation. It is agonizing to watch the girl go down the steps to the basement tiptoe after tiptoe sooooo slowwwly.

The great change we are waiting for, the one that will make newsworthy information part of one’s daily media diet is online content that will acknowledge and work around a user’s lack of patience. This means creating an event out of what is being presented… Make viewers mark in their calendars for it. Make them miss it if they miss it.

Twitter often takes this role. For the past few years, I make a point of watching the State of the Union as it airs, rather than later on in the evening, at a time more convenient to my schedule. Only then can I keep up with the tweets and status updates from friends and bloggers I follow.

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In terms of segmenting information, I’m very enthusiastic about the iPad. One aspect in particular is intriguing, and it is the very aspect that annoys Gizmodo so much: No Multitasking.

This is a backbreaker. If this is supposed to be a replacement for netbooks, how can it possibly not have multitasking? Are you saying I can’t listen to Pandora while writing a document? I can’t have my Twitter app open at the same time as my browser? I can’t have AIM open at the same time as my email? Are you kidding me? This alone guarantees that I will not buy this product.

- Gizmodo, 8 Things That Suck About the iPad

Here is the slow web in effect. The opportunity to focus on the one task at hand. Combined with the intimacy of the device, we’re going to see an entirely new way of interacting with information.

It is a more reflective way, one that might even correct some of the signal-to-noise issues we’ve for so long taken as a given of the digital age. Also in 2008, I wrote about how I feel the iPhone (and now the iPad) could gradually kill off some of the more inane youtube comments. From the post Reading Only Devices: Why iPhone, Kindle, and Tablet PCs Might Mean Smarter Blog Comments:

If more and more people start reading online media on mobile phones and Kindle, the incentive to leave a comment will go down dramatically. Do you really want to save this post for later and comment in a couple hours? Or do you want to struggle with writing something on the inadequate keyboard?

We might also see growth in devices that divorce writing from reading… A computer is designed to do both things at once so you no longer even think of reading while writing as multitasking. Often times the experience of writing an email is consuming and processing at once: as the message you are writing and the message you are responding to are in the same frame. I’m not old enough to remember the conventions of handwritten letters, but I doubt my grandmother sat at her desk composing a letter to her friend with her friend’s prior letter folded above it, going line by line, making sure she’s responded to every question in sequence.

The keyboard is closer to you than the screen. Many of us scroll the screen with the same keys we compose letters. It’s wonderful in that it has made us a more literary culture, but it also means a lot of great stuff gets lost in the abundance of online text.

If Kindle becomes more popular, and more laptops start including tablets, I think users will grow accustomed to reading without having to add their .02 once they get to the end. Which means those who do, might have something really interesting to say.

I actually prefer my iPhones inability to multitask. It’s putting a constraint on me… and my worst multi-tabbing, unfocused habits. If I can’t so easily navigate to another app or another page, I won’t.

The iPad is effectively dividing two experiences: reading and writing. This means actively listening to another person’s words, and having the time to think of what to say before typing. This is better communication. This is the future.

Previously:

  • Reading Only Devices
  • Handmade Looking Writing
  • Saying Yes and Hearing No
  • How to Frame the Internet
  • Why Teenagers Read Better Than You
  • Will Kindle Save “Hypertext” Fiction?

    • Posted by Joanne on Jan. 28, 2010 Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

    • Yes exactly! (on everything you've shared in this post)

      (and I'm very much looking forward to this unitasking future!)
    • I, for one, agree with you whole heartedly and I like the inability to multitask on my devices. I can't imagine anything worse to have when reading a book than twitter notifications, etc. ringing in my years. The key really is better communication. VIVA JOANNE'S ANALYSIS!
    • Fair enough, if it's what you want. But that's not to say that I believe that Apple should be constraining my decisions and behaviors - it's not their choice to make. Although I may buy an iPod for other reasons (primarily as a 'notebook'/recorder for class, if such an app comes out), I doubt I will enjoy the web experience that much, and end up having to workaround by emailing myself things (websites/articles/etc) for later.
    • I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I mean, we adapt to the strengths and weaknesses of any tool. Say you work with clay. You might choose to sculpt when its not so cold out because otherwise the material is less than ideal to manipulate. Someone who just sketches doesn't ever have to worry about the weather but they have different limitations on their preferred tool -- and these limitations don't always hinder the creative process, in some cases they add to it.

      The iPad doesn't have a mouse or a keyboard...so you create different habits while webcrawling than on a laptop or desktop. not necessarily better or worse. it's depends on what someone is looking to get out of the experience, personal preferences and habits....
    • It's not necessarily the physical use of it, but the idea that you can't multitask is kind of annoying to me (and I suspect to a lot of other people, I wrote it about it here: http://youngandbrilliant.net/post/357616145/ita...). What I'm saying is, while I can see why someone might want to limit their intake (as you do), that's not necessarily something I want to do. I've developed a habit around being able to do multiple things at once (I know this sounds insane, but I've actually carefully considered the line before multi-tasking too much and too little for myself - I cut myself off from multitasking completely for a month last summer), and I will pick tools that allow me to sustain that choice. I think there's adaptions that people are willing and not willing to make (for many tech geeks at least, multitasking is probably a mainstay), and if the tools don't allow them to do so, they'll use a workaround till it's fixed.
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