{"id":2709,"date":"2018-02-01T20:20:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-01T20:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/yesand\/?p=2709"},"modified":"2018-02-01T20:20:00","modified_gmt":"2018-02-01T20:20:00","slug":"tool-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/academics.design.ncsu.edu\/yesand\/2018\/02\/01\/tool-use\/","title":{"rendered":"Tool Use"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even though humans are the animals that shape tools, it is in the nature of tools and man that learning to use tools reshapes us.<\/span><\/h1>\n
Alan Kay, \u201cUser Interface: A Personal View,\u201d in The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design, ed. Brenda Laurel (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1990)<\/span><\/h5>

 <\/p>

This idea reminded me of something I heard on <\/span>Hidden Brain<\/span><\/a> (one of my favorite podcasts) about the power of language in shaping the way we think. The guest on the program, cognitive science professor Lera Boroditsky gives many examples of how a culture\u2019s language impacts the way that culture conceives and frames the world. One interesting example of this is in certain cultures\u2019 interpretation of time passing. In many western cultures, the conception of time passing is reflected through reading direction. Thus, time is often portrayed as passing from left to right \u2014 think about \u201ctimelines\u201d in computer software like <\/span>Adobe After Effects<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Final Cut<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>ProTools<\/span><\/a> or even in pictorial representation like <\/span>Duchamp\u2019s Nude Descending a Staircase no. 2<\/span><\/a> or the majority of work by Muybridge. Boroditsky contrasts this with a certain Australian aboriginal culture\u2019s conception of time which flows east to west. If the individual is facing south, time will pass from left to right, but if they are facing north, time will pass right to left.<\/span><\/p>

Psychologist George Lakoff makes note of a similar phenomena in his explanation of a neural filter or the way our brains are structured to process information. <\/span>Lakoff asks us<\/span><\/a> to think about our brains as a kind of person-to-world interface that stimuli passes through. The way we process that stimuli is expressed as our \u201cworldview,\u201d and language is the activating agent that either excites or repels that information (like a mesh that either expands or contracts depending on the kind of language used). Lakoff gives the example of conservative political operatives who often bemoan \u201cindustry regulations.\u201d By shifting the language to \u201cconsumer protections\u201d the same policies are transformed and activate a different, and I hate to use the word, \u201cliberal\u201d worldview. The information here, the policy, remains the same regardless. The language transforms the information, absorbed or rejected through our neural filter according to our particular worldview.<\/span><\/p>

In these examples we see the dramatic impact of language (the medium) on our abstract handling of concepts and phenomena. This is precisely the point that Kay makes in his essay. The computer doesn\u2019t just operate as a passive vehicle for information to flow to and from but actuality shapes the way we interpret that information and the world around us.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cEven though humans are the animals that shape tools, it is in the nature of tools and man that learning to use tools reshapes us.\u201d -Alan Kay<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":2710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-now-now","category-we-network","entry-card--portrait"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/academics.design.ncsu.edu\/yesand\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/3.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p86O3z-HH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/academics.design.ncsu.edu\/yesand\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/academics.design.ncsu.edu\/yesand\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/academics.design.ncsu.edu\/yesand\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.design.ncsu.edu\/yesand\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.design.ncsu.edu\/yesand\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/academics.design.ncsu.edu\/yesand\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2711,"href":"https:\/\/academics.design.ncsu.edu\/yesand\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2709\/revisions\/2711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.design.ncsu.edu\/yesand\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/academics.design.ncsu.edu\/yesand\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.design.ncsu.edu\/yesand\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.design.ncsu.edu\/yesand\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}