Habit Fields ⇾
In an article for A List Apart, Jack Cheng discusses how we imbue our objects with what he refers to as a “habit field”. It’s an interesting, high level view of how we condition ourselves in regards to our tools.
And on the subject of our powerful, multitasking computers, he has this to say:
Just because you can have instant access at your fingertips doesn’t mean you should.
This statement, so reminiscent of Ian Malcolm’s quote in the original Jurassic Park, is so true. And yet, millions of us struggle to resolve it.
Jack Cheng believes we can change ourselves:
By being conscious of our tools, habits, and spaces, and actively conditioning them to help us behave the way we want to behave, maybe we can more efficiently tap into the thousands of hours of creative genius embedded in our everyday objects.
Agreed. The first step is always awareness. With awareness, and a healthy desire to change, we have the ability to control our own actions.
After a discussion with Jeffrey Zeldman, Melissa Pierce ruminates on some things I’ve pondered in recent times. She also asks some pointed questions that we web-centric folks need to consider:
It strikes me that now that we do live in an age where information is more accessible than ever, it should be easier to find things to make a living at that one does care about. Am I naive in this assumption, or as Zeldman says, a little elitist? Could he be right, that although we have all of these tools at our fingertips, most people are still apt to sit back and watch, going back to their boring unfulfilling professional jobs?
As I transition from a more traditional, corporate IT gig to doing things that I really enjoy full time, I’ve been observing my coworkers in the office. I feel there is some truth to the idea that some people are simply too afraid or too lazy to venture out into the ‘uncomfortable’. Yet I have never considered myself entrepreneurial in any way—I have limits to how much time and energy I’ll expend on work. But the move to self-employment has involved only small amounts of extra energy … mainly because I’m doing what I love.
I think Melissa asks the right question when she refers to herself as an elitist. Sharing some of my online experiences with my coworkers—most of whom are motivated and intelligent people—I realize that in a lot of cases there is simply a lack of awareness. Those of us who spend a lot of time on the web sometimes lose touch with the fact that we operate in a microcosm. When it comes to the various tools available and the information they access, the majority don’t even know that they exist.
Twitter is a good example where the mainstream is starting to make our microcosm a little more macro, but there is a long way to go. So it should be no surprise that there are still a lot of people that are stuck in the more traditional working roles—they simply don’t know what an enabler the Internet can be.
