In this podcast Prof Rob Kitchin, a professor and ERC Advanced Investigator in the National Institute of Regional and Spatial Analysis at Maynooth University, Ireland chats about his book Slow Computing and the concept of Slow Computing. Digital technologies should be making life easier. And to a large degree they do, transforming everyday tasks of work, consumption, communication, travel and play. But they are also accelerating and fragmenting our lives affecting our well-being and exposing us to extensive data extraction and profiling that helps determine our life chances.
In this podcast Prof Rob Kitchin, a professor and ERC Advanced Investigator in the National Institute of Regional and Spatial Analysis at Maynooth University, Ireland chats about his book Slow Computing and the concept of Slow Computing. Digital technologies should be making life easier. And to a large degree they do, transforming everyday tasks of work, consumption, communication, travel and play. But they are also accelerating and fragmenting our lives affecting our well-being and exposing us to extensive data extraction and profiling that helps determine our life chances.
Hi there and welcome to my podcast show 'Technologies Impacting Society'. In this episode, I got to speak with Professor Rob Kitchin about 'Slow Computing'. Rob has just finished writing a book with Alister Frazier called 'Slow Computing', you will find it at slowcomputingbook.com. It's all about taking control of our digital lives. Digital technologies should be making our lives easier and to a large degree they do - transforming our everyday tasks, but also they're somehow affecting our well being and our concentration spans. In this book, Rob is drawn on the ideas of the 'Slow Movement' and 'Slow Computing' sets out numerous practical and political means to take back control, and counter the more pernicious effects of living digital lives.
Rob is also the author of four crime novels and two collections of short stories. He's also Professor and ERC Advanced Investigator at the National Institute of Regional & Spatial Analysis of Maynooth University, for which he was the Director between 2002 and 2013. He's currently a principal investigator at the Programmable City project (funded by the European Research Council) the Building City Dashboards project (funded by Science Foundation Ireland; also see Dublin Dashboard). He was formerly a PI for the Digital Repository of Ireland (2009-2017) and the All-Island Research Observatory (2005-2017).
Prof Rob Kitchin :
Hi, I'm Rob Kitchin a professor in the Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute. And my specialty is Human Geography as a discipline but most of my work is really on the relationship between technology and society.
Ina O'Murchu :
I suppose with the Data revolution we're having now where's your keen interest Rob? Which is the main sort of area of technology. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Prof Rob Kitchin :
So most of my works been on, I guess, Smart City Technology, but I've been writing about Technology, Society and Space, really, the intersection of those three things, well over 20/25 years, I think my first article on the internet was back in 1995 - I think. So I've been interested in this relationship about how, particularly internet technologies have kind of changed our relationship with space, and more recently with time and kind of reconfigures all different kinds of spaces, whether that's the home or whether it's work, or whether it's kind of neighborhoods, or whether it's larger regional economies, and so on. So I'm kind of interested in that relationship. So I started on the internet and then I moved on to thinking about software and how software in create space, how does software produce space. And a good example of something like an airport. Like the airport simply doesn't function without software from buying the ticket to checking in, to going through security, going through immigration. It goes through passport control, all of those kinds of things are mediated by software. And the plane itself is basically, you know, a box with wings. That's the whole set of computers, basically a whole set of computers with wings. And so I started to send, rather than just this kind of world inside the computer, I was much more interested in how software was, and how software has been embedded into everyday objects, all kinds of different things started to move from being dumb to being smart. And then more recently in, I guess, from around 2012, onwards more interested in Data. So all of this software has to work on data in order to be smart objects produce lots of data. So then how does that, I guess how does that combination of algorithms and Data kind of manifests itself in lots of different ways? And how does it shape our everyday lives in different ways and and how it feeds into kind of decision making, choice making, nudging, altering our behavior, and, and so on. So that was the kind of move towards looking at this notion of the of the Data Revolution I guess.
Ina O'Murchu :
You've written a very interesting book called 'Slow Computing'. Can you talk a little bit about that, Rob?
Prof Rob Kitchin :
Yes, so a lot of my work has been on you know, what are the consequences for these Technologies? What do they do? How do they do it? And the 'Slow Computing' book was more of an attempt to say, what do we do about it? And as individuals, how can we, maybe take back some of our sovereignty? So in relation to time, and in relation to data, how can we get some more control over how these technologies impact on us? So it's really about kind of setting out the ways in which these technologies impact on us. And then both individually and collectively, what can we do to try and make sure the technology works for us rather than against us, and allows us to kind of have the joy of computing. So I mean, computing is very useful. And you know, lots of people get lots of benefit out of it, whether it's from entertainment or whether it's work or whether it's keeping in contact with family or whatever it is. How do we do that? So it's not done in a kind of pernicious way where we become the product and we're being manipulated by companies or states, and we have some kind of sovereigntry and some kind of power inside that set of relationships.
Ina O'Murchu :
Your book is on 'Slow Computing' from what I read is basically about taking control. As you're talking about there that, you know, we hold on to our own Data, we're trying to take control of our own digital lives.
Prof Rob Kitchin :
Yeah, so it's not necessarily - it is partly about trying to control our Data but is about us, maybe being a bit more reflexive, and a bit more careful, and maybe taking a bit more time to understand how we might be caught up in things like surveillance capitalism, and the way in which companies try to extract value from us and manipulate us into certain things, whether it's into purchases or, and so on, and also in relation to our time. So there was always this notion that computing would free up lots of leisure time and would free up our kind of ability to be in control of what we're doing. But actually, in a lot of ways, it's just fragmented our time and put more pressure onto us. So we're constantly having to deal with lots and lots of different tasks. So I'm being bombarded all day at the minute with emails and text messages and all these kind of stuff coming in. And I'm expected to respond - in relatively real time. So there's always pressure to be in contact to respond, to interact with people, to interact with systems, and so on. And also because things are not so managed and things are about serendipity So it used to be if I wanted to go and meet somebody, I'd say, I'll meet, you under Cleary's Clock (https://www.totallydublin.ie/film/film-features/under-the-clock-clerys-on-oconnell-street/) at three o'clock, and we both have to be there. Whereas now I have a phone and we can kind of negotiate as we go along. And at one level, that's great, but another level that kind of fragments the time and lets you interleave more things and actually makes things more pressured, because now you're you can try and balance more things. So rather than just go to Cleary's clock, you might deal deal with kids, deal with bills, answering emails while you're at the bus stop. You're doing lots of other things rather than just leisurely go there as a one single activity.
Ina O'Murchu :
What made you write the book 'Slow Computing', Rob?
Prof Rob Kitchin :
It was partly to do I guess with my kind of background around kind of Policy, so I've been in a kind of a policy kind of Institute for a long time so. A lot of the work that we do is about trying to understand what's going on, and then try to give advice. So a lot of our work has been around things like spatial planning, and population and so on. So we would, we wouldn't just analyse what was going on, we would also don't have to try and say to the policymakers, or to politicians, or to community groups, this is what we think should happen. I've not really done that in relation to this technology stuff. So a lot of my work has been critique, without necessarily saying, well, this is what should happen instead, although some of my work has been doing that but in a very normative way, so in a very kind of theoretical conceptual way, as opposed to a very practical grounded way. So I wanted to be able to, I'm with my co author, Alistair Fraser, we want to be able to actually talk directly to people like give advice, at a kind of a ground level of kind of saying, you know, look, this is the kinds of relations you're embedded in, and these you know, sometimes with this technology it almost seems quite teleological, it's kind of faith, it's kind of theres an inevitability about it. It's just this kind of forward movement and we're caught in it and actually saying, Well, no, like we can actually push back, we can actually do little things to gain back some control. And if we collectively organized and we can kind of try and get a different type of relation, you know, that we organised through unions, or we organized through civil society, or organised through local communities, we can actually say, look, we don't we don't want this kind of level of Data extraction, or we don't want this pressure to be working in the evenings and weekends, and so on, and we can move towards new regulation, or new kind of work practices and so on.
Ina O'Murchu :
This is I think, right now, we're not being given a choice. We don't have any choice. We have to go along with it. And as you said, it's like 24, seven.
Prof Rob Kitchin :
To a certain degree. I mean, yes, we kind of say that in the book that 'Slow Computing' is hard. It's not easy, right? Because there's lots of pressure. Just know your family expects you to be on the phone 24 seven, right, they expect you to respond, they expect you to be able to deal with the time fragmentation and time pressures and so on, your employer often expects you to be available 24 seven, particularly if you're in jobs with zero hour contracts, and so on. And they expect you to be able to come in at a drop of a hat to work and so on. So you don't necessarily have a lot of power in this relations. Some of this technology is deliberately addictive. I mean, these companies, employ Behavior Analysts, and Neuro Psychologists and so on. I mean, they deliberately building there's a thing called the Hook cycle, which is all about the ways in which you make the technology addictive, so that you're compelled to keep going back to social media because you want the buzz of a new comment or a new like or a new, you want to know what's happening. So you, you constantly keep going back. And that's the kind of a cycle it's quite difficult to break, you know. So there are pressures to kind of keep us into this kind of set of relations. At the same time, you can kind of push back against them. And say, actually, I'm only going to look at my email three times a day, I'm not going to look at it every five minutes, I'm not going to, you know, I'm going to block off time for this, I'm not going to ask my phone in the evening, or I'm going to take a break over the weekend. Or I'm going to use privacy enhancement technology within my browser, or I'm gonna, you know, use it on my phone.
So I might use a VPN, I might install various plugins like Privacy Badger or HTTPS Everywhere and so on. So, I can find ways in which I can try to limit data extraction and so on. And if we work collectively, then we can push back against it in a sense so that so a thing like in France, for example, and in Italy, they now they now have a law, called 'The Right To Disconnect'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_disconnect And the right to disconnect means you're under no obligation to answer email after five o'clock or at the weekends or to answer the phone to your boss, you know, that you you actually have the right to say no, I'm not doing that. I'm interested in some German companies have actually worked out that it's actually more productive not to hassle their staff in the evenings and the weekends and they get a lot more productivity and innovation and creativity out of their staff if they're well rested, that they like going to work, that they enjoy working for the company, and that they don't feel a lot of pressure or resentment, and so on. So certain German companies like Mercedes or Bayern and so on, won't send emails after five o'clock, they actually just store them up and they'll go out in the morning, they won't ruin the weekend.
If you go on holiday for two weeks, then you won't get any emails during that two weeks and so on. They're very practical interventions where the company has kind of worked out that it's in their interest, not to have stressed, pressured employees. People come back rested, they come back motivated, they come back more creative and they're more productive and it's actually better for the company to have staff who like working for a company and feel engaged than staff who are kind of pressured and resentful and stressed and so on.
So Slow Computing can actually mean you know, kind of doing more with less in a way, it's kind of a more sensible strategy to kind of practice what's called 'Structured Rest'. Structured Rest is this kind of notion that you should actually have downtime, that you should be looking after your health and well being that you actually will be a more kind of productive, creative, motivated worker, if you do actually have a work life balance. And it's about trying to put that into your daily life, you know, and making sure you get some exercise making sure that you have some downtime. So it's not like a complete digital detox. It's not saying you should give up computing you should give up all this stuff is basically saying you just need to have it in some kind of form of balance where you're managing that kind of relationship and that you're not completely snowed under or feeling that you're under pressure the entire time. And that you can kind of separate yourself off from the computer or from your phone. You know, like the smartphone is kind of interesting as this device because it's basically a computer you have in your pocket but also is a phone.
And it allows us a great degree of connectivity. And you know, people get kind of, you know, people will spend hours on their phone every day you know, I think there's a number of studies that show that people look at their phone over 50 times a day, you know, 60 odd percent of people have looked at their phone within 15 minutes of waking up and started to answer email and started to answer social media. It's the first thing they do is before they even had breakfast, or a cup of tea or a cup of coffee, they've actually started to interact on their phones, it's made me say, look, I'm not gonna look at my phone for the first hour, when I get up. I'm going to kind of have a more relaxed entry into the day as opposed to immediately being under pressure and you look at your phone and go, Oh my God, I've missed that report, or I've missed this call. I've missed my phone, until you actually wake up immediately stressed, you know, about kind of, so a lot of it can be very small interventions, and things like 'The Right To Disconnect' or things like large collective interventions that are maybe negotiated through trade unions or civil liberties groups, that kind of social activist groups and so on, that try to pressure for more kind of societal regulation or societal pushback practices, and so on. So it's a kind of a combination. In that sense.
Ina O'Murchu :
You have a chapter called 'Accelerating Life'. I'm wondering if this is what you're referencing to, you know, we're so busy, it's almost double the time now going, because we have to attend to this device into the real world. It's kind of spoiling living in the first world as such.
Prof Rob Kitchin :
Yeah. So this notion that, you know, as I said before, there's this notion that we, you know, this technology would free us up, you know, and it would automate things, and it would actually give us more time, whereas in actual fact, our lives have speeded up, they've become more busy, they become more kind of interleaved. So by interleaved I mean, we do multiple activities simultaneously. So I can be eating my dinner, watching the television and interacting on social media and talking to the kids at the same time. I'm not doing one thing in time, and I could be doing things at multiple scales. So by that, I mean, I can be sat in my living room, engaging with a TV that might be talking about a national debate while texting somebody on the other side of the world.
So I'm kind of extended in these long networks of relations spread across the globe through the connection of the computer, as though although the technology in a way is meant to make things easier, and more managed, actually, I'm just busier, right, I'm dealing with trying to manage relationships with lots of different people in lots of different places, lots of different devices, lots of different tasks are all kind of over the top of each other. And so part of what we're saying is, is we need to kind of step back from that or work back from that and work out how. This is the notion of 'Slow, which comes off the notion of the 'Slow Movement' and the 'Slow Movement' has been. So it was originally in relation to 'Slow Food" you know, this idea rather than fast food and you know, in and out our food onto the next thing that we interact you take time. Enjoy the food, enjoy the family, enjoy the conversation, the interactions with our friends, and so on. And that 'Slow Movement' has moved into a whole series of other things to things like 'Slow Tourism', things like the 'Slow University', for example, you know, we live in this Neoliberal University of hyper productivity, you know, that we have to find a way of going and getting our work life balance back and slowing things down, and maybe being more thoughtful and more reflective and more careful and analysis rather than fast, and so on....
So it's that kind of balance, I think, between kind of the pressures being put on us through these multiple kinds of relations and our well being and our health and our kind of mental sanity on the other side, and how, but we've, we've been very careful to try and say, look, we're not saying give up computing, because we get lots and lots of benefits from computing, right? We get pleasure, we get the joy of interaction with people on the other side of the world, we get community we get all sorts of stuff, you know, when we get loads of choice on the TV, we get loads of, you know, various different gizmos and stuff, you know, but it's about getting that balance right that we don't come to be completely sucked into that world that we're kind of degrading, our other kinds of relations are not really doing ourselves any favors in relation to our health and well being.
Ina O'Murchu :
Do you think that it's actually taking from humanity? I mean, this fractured attention span, for example, I've seen it. I mean it damages your learning. I'd much prefer, for example, it's kind of doing a period of deep work, you know, you have no distractions for like two hours or three hours - blocks of work like this. But I've seen what it does to my own attention span. And I often wonder how this affects my nervous system. And are there any studies have there been any studies done and what it actually does to your nerves? Because as you know, I don't have the scientific terms. As far as I can see, it can often fry your nerves, for want of a better word.
Prof Rob Kitchin :
Yeah, I mean, I'm not that's not my kind of area of study, but there's a whole lot I mean, there is a big literature around kind of health and well being and around the use of digital tech and so on. Some of that can be on the side towards you know violent games and so on and so it can be around stress and addiction and so on. So I don't know whether it fries your nerves. I mean, certainly things like social media makes me anxious. So I have this kind of strange relationship with social media where I've got, you know, I have this timeline full of bad news and people giving out about this, that and the other. And I kind of get anxious about things at the same time, I'm compelled to keep reading it. And if I don't read it for a day, I'm wondering what the hell's going on in the world.
And, you know, so I kind of in this kind of relation, to what I've been trying to do, actually writing the book made me think about my own relationship to this kind of Tech, you know, so I try to kind of just go on particular times, as opposed to having it on the entire time in the background, which, of course, I've gone back to doing now. So like, it's got, you know, like, and I think the other kind of thing to reuse kind of thing about learning. And so we talked a little bit about this. It's just recognizing that as a kind of neuro diversity around learning, and that we actually learn in different ways. So for some people, they can actually be quite productive flipping between different things. And they don't, they don't mind that other people are really productive if they're deep in something, and they don't have any distractions, and they're like 100%, concentrated on something. So people have different learning styles, they have different ways of engaging material, they have different ways of working through it. So there's not a one size fits all on that front, I think.
And it's more about finding the way that works best for you. Also identifying the ways that work negatively, and then trying to work out how to get rid of those. So we have this thing around structured time really around working out how to manage time, and we also do it on the relation to Data. So kind of manage like understanding how we give away Data, the way Data is extracted from us and so on. And working out how we want to manage that and to actively manage that rather than just saying, it's just the condition of the system and we have to accept it or we don't. Well that's not true, we can actually intervene and we can do certain things. Ultimately, though, you're gonna have to give something away
Ina O'Murchu :
What are the things that we can do collectively Rob?
Prof Rob Kitchin :
Collectively, it is about things like so there's a number of civil society organizations, particularly around Data. So things like the American Civil Liberties Union https://www.aclu.org/ and the Electric Frontier Foundation, https://www.eff.org/, Privacy International https://www.privacyinternational.org/. You know, there's a whole bunch of these kind of actors that are looking at things around digital technology, and civil liberties, and that kind of rights and entitlements and so on, and are actively campaigning on getting regulation, and getting law, building privacy enhancement technologies, and so on. So they are trying to collectively shape the landscape and things like GDPR is a good example of something that's come out of that kind of movement or different, different kinds of relatively large civil society actors working together trying to pressure Politicians and Parliament's to shape the kind of legal regulatory landscape. On the timefronts the same kind of thing has happened around the right to disconnect. We should rather maybe more than coming out to start organizations come out with unions And, you know, labor organizations, and so on. And things like the Gig Economy has kind of shifted quite a bit of kind of organization, activist labor organization around things like time management because the Gig Economy is partly around then, you know, altering the temporal relations of work and so on. So there has been a bit of organizing on that front and a bit of pushing back.
How can we find out what you know, is there the area of obviously, digital ethics, that's still new, and digital care? These are new emerging sectors. You know, there's I think a lot of this is about education, because I think a lot of people don't know, they don't care and they give away an awful lot of their rights when they give away their Data. And I don't think they understand I'm not not saying that in sort of being a know it all, but I don't think they fully understand the consequences of giving away their Data and the rights been gradually eroded.
Yes, that's right. So particularly around the Data too, because there has been this massive growth of Data Brokers and Data Markets, and you know, all of these different technologies, they're extracting Data about us, all the different kinds of services that we interact with are extracting Data about us. And those Data circulate and they are shared and monetised and value extracted from them, and they have consequences for us. So the Data might well shape, you know, whether you get the tenancy or whether you get the loan, the mortgage, or whether you get the job, or even who you date, right if you're using one of these dating websites, or who you interact with on social media. So whose messages pop in your timelines and whose are hidden? And what adverts you see, how you might be nudged. So how recommender systems work to influence maybe what TV you watch, what books you buy, or read what music you listen to, and so on. So, this Data has consequences even if you don't necessarily realise it. Now, some people will say, well, that's great because I get to watch the TV or like and I get to listen to the music I like and I get to date people I like but there's a balance between the degree to which you'll have real agency in those decisions and the degree to which you're being manipulated.
And at the minute, you might not necessarily know where that balance lies. And you might not necessarily know how much Data is actually being pulled away from you. So whenever I run my classes, where I give public talks, I kind of show people the Data that's collected about them.
They're often quite shocked,
Ina O'Murchu :
Shocked, I bet. Yeah.
Prof Rob Kitchin :
But then they say, what can we do about it? And then they kind of say, well, there's nothing we can do about it. If I want to use Facebook, I just have to accept that they're going to take all this Data. And if I use Google, I just have to accept they're going to take all this Data, and so on.
But that's not necessarily true. I mean, I mean, you know, the simplest way to start Facebook getting Data about you is not use Facebook. But that's difficult if all of your family and friends are on there. And that's where the platform they want to communicate through because it's very difficult to say to everybody, you know, we're okay, we're all leaving Facebook and we're going somewhere else, so it's difficult to get any entire network to move. That's why they kind of exist in a monopoly position. It's not just as simple as saying we're going to be Facebook. So that's why Facebook needs to be regulated around some of its Data practices, and its Privacy Practices, and so on.
But there's still things that you can do like using Facebook Container, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-container/ for example. So it basically puts Facebook in a container on your browser, so they can't track you while you're across all the websites, which, you know, doesn't track you across the Like button all across all the other kinds of things. So it kind of helps block them building up a bit of a profile around you. It might be you know, so it's being careful about what you actually post on Facebook. I don't mention anything about my family on Facebook, I share work things, and I share things about the media and I do share things about what's going on, you know, so I might say, 'Oh, we've just built a new chicken coop' or something.
But that's, I don't I don't mind saying that. So my rule is I don't put anything on social media that I wouldn't say in the pub, or in the hairdresser's or in a public environment. That I don't want people to hear. But anything that I only close people to hear, then I don't put that up. As the same kind of thing with a photo, you don't, don't put up a photo that you don't mind being shared with everybody on the planet. Because once it's online, it's online, people can screen grab it, they can share it, they can do other kinds of things with it. So it's just maybe being I think self reflectivity is a big part of this.
I think you're right. Education is a big part of that, you know, this stuff should be taught in schools that people know, you know, what kinds of Data is collected about them? What kind of happens with it, because the school that what happens on the school stuff doesn't just disappear, right? So it's there in the background, you know, so if you put up stupid nude photos of yourself, they don't just disappear, you know, when you were drunk and 16 or something it like you have to be a little bit kind of savvy about how some of this Tech works. And I thank God it wasn't around when I was 16.
Ina O'Murchu :
Likewise, I think it's very difficult because the teachers themselves don't even understand how it works. There's just not enough resources to go around in a society that's based on Science & Technology.
Prof Rob Kitchin :
Yeah, and it's the same when I'm when I did a report for the Data forum of the Taoiseach's office a couple of years around Smart City technology. That was one of the things I recommended was like, we need proper education, and training about things like you know, what Data is collected, what happens with it, how's it used, and then also things like cybersecurity, and proper kind of protections in around this that the people inside organizations need to know this or people running this technology needs to do this, and the people or the technologies, focusing on or managing or delivering a service too need to know that as well. And we've not been that great at doing that.
And Data Brokers are an interesting market sector. In that they're almost black boxes. Nobody really knows what's going inside of them. They're, they're kind of very secretive organisations. And we don't have good insight as to what kinds of Data they've got, how they're integrating, linking that Data together, how they're extracting it, how they're monetising.
We have some idea about how they're monetising, because they have to be able to sell the services to other people. So we do have some notions. But there's lots that we don't know. And most people in society have no idea what Data Brokers are doing. They don't know what Data those Data Brokers hold about them. In Europe, we have things like GDPR that tries to regulate that kind of stuff, but we still don't there's lots of stuff that's probably going on there. In places like the US and so on I think it's a lot more fragmented on the kind of privacy legislation front and practices and what you can do with the Data is much more open than within Europe.
Ina O'Murchu :
What are your own personal strategies of 'Slow Computing' Rob?
Prof Rob Kitchin :
I do try to do the structured kind of rest business but I don't not necessarily trying to work weekends or in the evening. I try to block it also I work over very intensely, between nine and five. I take my break, always take breaks. I always take my 11 o'clock break, always take the after lunch. I always take a break in the afternoon. So I kind of try to structure in that sense, try to keep, you know, so not looking at. I mean, there's what I say I do, and then what I actually do, right? But like, the idea is I don't look at email or I don't answer email, or I try to manage how long I look at social media or whatever it might be.
Try not to look at the phone within the first hour of waking up. You know, it's just that kind of stuff. Then on the on the Data stuff I've already said, I try to manage, I try to curate what I share. I try to I use things like privacy enhancement tools. So on my on my, I use Firefox as my browser, I would have Facebook Container. I'd have HTTPS Everywhere, Privacy Badger. You know, I've got a bunch of ad blockers. I have like I have a bunch of stuff that tries to manage the Data extraction coming off of what I'm doing.
I'm using a VPN. So some of my stuff is around time. Some of my stuff is around Data. And the house is pretty analog in the sense of I don't have a smart kettle or coffeemaker, I don't have a smart TV, I don't have a smart washing machine. I'm only connecting things up that I think. Basically, it's just the phone and the laptop are really the only digital things that are connected onto the internet. So there's no other Data extraction going off of home appliances. That will become more difficult over time, because they just won't sell the mechanical washing machine anymore. It will be a Smart washing machine and you just won't have a choice. So it'd be increasingly difficult to do that. But at the same time, you don't necessarily need to connect the washing machine to the internet for it to work
Ina O'Murchu :
Or your fridge
Prof Rob Kitchin :
Or your fridge. Yeah, I don't need a Smart fridge, I can open the door and see what's in there. I don't need the fridge to tell me you know.
Ina O'Murchu :
So what are the steps Rob that we can take also towards a more balanced digital society?
Prof Rob Kitchin :
So it is as a society actually understanding how the economy is produced a particular kind of working style, this kind of neoliberal political economy which is all about performance and management and extracting value out of workers. And we're all working longer than we paid for, we're all hyper connected all the time, and so on.
And maybe just changing that style of how that works, you know, so moving away from this kind of very macro sized view of how of how we try to manage organisations and so on, and maybe change your thinking about the kinds of workplaces that we want to we want to live in and we want to work in and how they're managed and run and things around like the civil society and things like labor unions and so on, and actively as a society trying to shape policy shape regulation shapes, social expectations, to shape what we actually expect people to be to be doing.
So it's a bit of both, really, but I think part of what we're doing is trying to say, look, there does seem to be this kind of inevitability that we should be living at this pace and tempo, that we should just accept this concept of 'Surveillance Capitalism', and actually kind of saying, well, that's not the case. And there's little things that we can do to win to intervene.
And then there are larger political things that we can do to try and intervene. And it's not an inevitable teleological path to some predestined future. You know, the future is there to be shaped. And we can try and do interventions to shape that, and that we do need to push back. If we, if we don't do anything, then we will get the future that others want for us. And so we need to do something, even if it's just a lot of us doing small steps, some of us doing larger or as a collective doing larger steps, that that needs to happen.
Ina O'Murchu :
So people do need to become more aware and more educated and come together as a collective. it's to do with civil rights, basically, ultimately, at the end of the day, well, with this new Technological Age, we're going into, our rights are going to become more and more important, I firmly believe that.
Prof Rob Kitchin :
Yeah, so yes, there are kind of civil liberty things here. I mean, and that's going on at the minute in relation to the COVID as well, you know, that that we're rushing out this technology without necessarily thinking about some of the downstream effects of rolling you know, of kind of legitimating this kind of Mass Surveillance, and so on. So there is also a kind of a social thing as well. So it's partly, you know, some of this stuff is about, you know, changing regulation and law and so on. But actually, some of it's about us changing our behavior with each other. So, you know, if I say to people, look, I'm not going to do that this is reason why, I think we, you know, so it could be little things like little games, you know, or whatever. So, I mean, I go to restaurants, occasionally, I mean, obviously, you don't go at all at the minute given the situation, but go back six months, and then go to a restaurant, and half the people at our table would actually be looking at their phone, or the kids at the table might be looking at a DVD or any kind of thing.
This is kind of crazy, like, like, this is meant to be a social event of the people at the table. And actually, nobody's talking to each other. They're all talking to their phone. So you can change the social dynamic there and actually get people to maybe think about what's going on there. You know, simple things. So like the one I like is everybody has to put the phone in the middle of the table in a stack and whoever picks up the phone first pays the bill for everybody, right? The only reason you can ask the phone is if the babysitter rings. Otherwise, it's a social event and you talk to people at the table, you know, that works at a couple of different levels. It works at the level of hopefully making the evening more kind of enjoyable, you're actually talking to the people there. But it also works at the level of making people reflect on the fact that this thing is interfering in their life in a very particular kind of way that might, that they've just normalised and just accepted, as opposed to kind of saying, is that actually how I want to live? Do I want to live tethered to this thing? Or do I want to use it in a more kind of selective, creative way that isn't altering my life in a way that's maybe not as beneficial as I think it is.
Ina O'Murchu :
Thanks a lot for listening to my podcast. If you like, you can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or SoundCloud. Or if you want more information, you can head over to my website at www.inaom.io
