A couple months ago I wrote "Never Watch A Loading Screen" on a Post-It, took a picture of it, and made that picture the lock screen on my iPhone. I had noticed that people often watch their screens while they're loading, as if the email wouldn't arrive or the page wouldn't load unless your eyes were glued to the screen. For me, this was another example of how we let our devices control and monopolize our attention, and I decided to see if having a reminder NOT to do it would help.
Lo and behold, it did. Not a big surprise, I suppose; but it got me thinking that if the smartphone is a perfectly-jeweled machine for grabbing our attention, maybe it could also serve as a good platform for reminding us to take back our attention, to do little things that remind us that we connection is inevitable, but distraction is a choice.
Today, I decided to make the lock screen a little nicer. I created three screens (all optimized for the iPhone, by the way), meant to remind us to do simple things that are part of contemplative computing. I thought I'd share them.
Keep Breathing
via flickr; download the iPhone-optimized version
This builds on Linda Stone's email apnea idea: that we unconsciously hold our breath when we check our email. (I noticed I did it while waiting for other programs to load, too.)
Never Watch a Loading Screen
This is the nicer version of the Post-It picture.
via flickr; download the iPhone-optimized version
Don't Switch-task, Multitask
via flickr; download the iPhone-optimized version
One of the things I argue in the book is that we confuse multitasking with switch-tasking, and that we do far too much of the latter. When I interviewed psychologists and archaeologists about it, they talked about multitasking in the context of doing complex tasks: for them, multitasking involves keeping in mind several different activities, often of very different types and with different time-scales, that all converge on a single goal or endpoint. That's a kind of cognitive activity that humans are really good at, and is very valuable.
It's also very different from the cognitive challenge of, say, texting someone while driving and listening to a conference, while live-tweeting it all. Those are different but not convergent activities, and compete for the same mental bandwidth.
So multitasking is good, but switch-tasking is bad. Remember that.
If you haven't changed your lock screen before, it's simple. Copy the image you want to use to your iPhone (by opening this page in Safari, emailing a copy of the picture, etc.), then save it to the camera roll. Go to the camera roll and open the picture. On the bottom left, you'll see the command icon (a little rectangle with an arrow); tap on it, then select "Use as Wallpaper." You'll next have the option to move and scale the picture; just hit Set. Next, you'll have the option to use the image as a lock screen (the picture that you first see when your iPhone is locked), as a home screen (what on a computer would be the wallpaper), or both.
...and I would totally switch my lock screen, except that it's a picture of that gorilla in Germany who got hold of a Nintendo DS, and she's looking at her kid who wants it and is clearly saying NO, MINE. I use it as a reminder that I will look just as idiotic ignoring my own kid to look at that screen. (It mostly works.)
So I'm there with you, but on a slightly different wavelength. Harmony ensues.
Posted by: Victoria Landau | 01/18/2013 at 07:24 PM