wifi’ing
May 22nd, 2006
Originally uploaded by stilleben [’stelle:bƏn].
I’m in London again. I haven’t been here for many years – except for 2 weeks ago, when I was in for one day. I’m surprised that I spent most of my time, going around looking for wifi hotspots. I can’t drink coffee at a place if they don’t have wifi. I haven’t really planed to see anything - I am going to a concert with m. craft to night though.
What is interesting about this, is the fact that wifi changes how some people go about in cities, just as moblogging for some people changes what and how they do things. One reason for this is that I haven’t bothered to buy a guide book (there are googlemaps), also I haven’t checked out what is going on at the moment, so I go into cafes check some London sites find out what to do, do it, and then another round of wifi/coffee and find out something new to do. The good thing about this is that while planning for the next couple of hours, I can upload to flickr as well.
Is this the cycle of a social software junkie? Or are we seeing new emerging practices of media use integrated to everyday life and tourism? Perhaps a bit of both, but no doubt we are still at the beginning of noticing these changes. What is important is that we don’t rush in and try to judge this as an addiction (see article in Danish Newspaper Politiken). The danger of these kinds of judgments is that they resolve into boundary making, based on something that is seldom conscious to the boundary makers (in this case sociologist and psychologists). Where is this leading? I guess my claim is that we should sometimes give new media use time, before starting to judge.
Ohh and what am I doing here? Visiting INCITE and Adrian Mackenzie and interviewing the people behind Shozu (more on this later).
