On What People Can Do and Technology Can't

I do not suggest that we have fallen out of love with technology, more that we are regaining appreciation and respect for what people can do that tech can’t. (p.3)

This is probably the idea that will appeal most to general readers of Thackara’s book (it’s featured heavily in the blurb on the back cover). It’s not uncommon for people to feel a general unease with today’s idolization of technological progress. Thackara offers a philosophy of human-centeredness without demonizing technology and frames it as a path to more meaningful and sustainable social experiences.

Throughout the book, the author’s emphasis on people appears in his discussion of multiple fields, including healthcare, education, community, and work. In each case, he acknowledges the radical changes enabled by new technologies, but always reminds us the real question is how things should change, a matter of human judgment. He makes this point when discussing the design of the workplace:

Our networks and communities need the time, energy, presence, and participation of real people to flourish. Human systems need inputs of human energy to do well. Everything else—the Internet, agents, wireless, gadgets—is contingent. They’re support, not the thing itself. So when designing systems, services, infrastructures—and work itself—we should ask whether our design actions will enable or disable human agency. (p.111)

Part of what is disquieting about technological progress is the way some people and companies take it as an autonomous force. Thackara calls this out:

Of course it’s true that new technologies give rise to new ways of living and organizing that would not exist without them—and some of those changes are benign. But they should be the result of human actions informed by intelligent reflection on alternatives. Innovation is not a neutral activity. Many innovation agendas are driven by technological determinism; they often disguise creepy social agendas, too. (p 219)

However, note that Thackara isn’t advising a stop to technology (he doesn’t think it a practical option anyways). Instead, he offers a more positive possibility. First, our current relationship with technology and its subsequent impact on the environment are not phenomena that emerged autonomously. They are the result of design choices we have made as a society. We designed ourselves into it, which means we can choose to design our way out, as long as we are sensitive to the lessons about unintended consequences of design and seek to empower human judgement and collective action.

This line of thinking also points to a more participatory approach to design process.

People are too often described and thought of by designers as users or consumers when we really need to think of them as actors…

Unlike the point-to-mass paradigm of the manufacturing era, a collaborative or open model implies mass participation in creation of a service or situation. A new kind of immersive innovation emerges as the functional divisions between users and producers of a service become blurred. (pp.221-222)

Participatory design is an idea that has been around for a while now in various forms. Thackara’s vision of it seems to be inspired by the increase in service-focused design, which emphasizes the co-creation of an experience between service providers and service participants.