Karl Stolley and Monica Chin both talk about something that has been affecting how students interact with the internet, but in a larger microcosm, highlight a systematic issue with how people are interacting with their computers in the first place. Because computers are so commonplace, I think that a lot of basic information about how to use them has fallen to the wayside, a sentiment I see reflected in both the works from Stolley and Chin.
Chin’s work, “File Not Found,” talks about how students these days are not sure how to use typical file sorting and organization compared to the first generation that had to learn how to use computers. This problem stems from a lot of computers at that time not having search bars or easily accessible methods of finding the exact file that you would want. Everything had to be organized like a filing cabinet if you wanted a snowball’s chance in hell of finding it again. As she says, “today’s students increasingly don’t remember a world without them [search bars].”
Her work points to a larger problem; a generalized lack of knowledge about how the inner workings of a computer function. Karl Stolley expands on this in his work “The Lo-Fi Manifesto.” Not only do people not know how their computers function, they don’t really know the very basic bare bones of the different languages of a computer. He points the problem to being an over reliance on programs that specialize in WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). This essentially means that the programs are designed to make it easier for the person to understand what they’re doing.
Why is that a bad thing you might ask? Well, it becomes a bad thing when it results in the carving up of the internet and digital media in general. That means that it makes it harder to share and distribute digital media. Different people have different operating systems, or they might not have the specific program that you made the thing in.
Let’s use an example that Stolley himself used: PowerPoint. When I type PowerPoint, you almost certainly presume that I’m talking about a slideshow that you can pull up on your computer and show off on your laptop. It’s so ubiquitous as to become a noun, a synonym for digital slide. “I’m going to make a PowerPoint,” for example. However, that only works if you also have the program PowerPoint. I’m sure plenty of people have had the experience of making a slideshow that doesn’t work, or the formatting is terribly off, or something has just broken and now you’re stuck in the unenviable position of having to figure out what exactly you meant to say here because your slide is now unreadable.
You might be wondering how I know that. Simply put, it’s a familiar topic for me.
However, if one learns how to use lo-fi technology, something that he goes into with a bit more detail, one can create digital artifacts that last long after a certain program stops being supported or can be used without a certain type of commercialized item. lo-fi tech is what computers were built off of: HTML, Markdown, text files. These simplistic things, combined with the generalized knowledge that Chin of how to operate a computer, paints a picture of ultimate flexibility in terms of making something digitally. As he says, the “Flexibility emerges from the thoughtful application of lo-fi technologies.”
One of the biggest problems with the internet that is facing people currently is the question of how to save things forever on a computer. By learning the lo-fi tech that runs the internet and learning how to properly navigate and store things on your own computer, you can ensure that your items will persevere long after your system has updated and that software no longer functions.
Comments
2 responses to “Lo-Fi Tech and You: Why These Things Matter”
I 100% agree. I believe that as computers have become more commonplace, people have stopped learning as much as they should about them. But that goes for everything. How much of us knows how a car works? Should we know the basics so we can repair it, of course, but how many of us can say we do? I believe this comes from our relationship with technology. Something that we can just use and not have to worry about its actual workings.
“File Not Found” goes into detail about how people were taught, whereas the younger generation is not.
“Lo-Fi Manifesto” goes into detail about how, if you produce content, you need to understand the tools you are using.
You hit the nail on the head with your closing remark. By understanding the technologies we use, we can ensure our stuff last much longer.
This week’s readings were very interesting to me. I felt called out in Monica Chin’s “File Not Found” because I am guilty of having disorganized files. I kind of felt like I was a little kid, and a friend suddenly came over to find my room messy! I was never taught any sort of organization when it came to my computer, and it’s only been recently that I had to organize things. On the topic of saveability/accessibility when it comes to websites, files, data, etc., I had never really given it much thought before. “The Lo-fi Manifesto” was a heavier read than Monica Chin’s, but it helped me understand just how important digital writing knowledge is for writers and the like!