IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2013 - 37

The ways that people are asynchronous on their devices are similar, but
differ in outcomes depending upon
what mix of apps they are using at
any given time, and how the tools
are within those apps behave with
regard to privacy. More options
are available if using a geospatial
type app like Foursquare or Facebook that shows others via a "chat"
whether or not one is logged in.
PolySocial reality (PoSr) is a
framework we have developed for
representing these complex synchronous and asynchronous messaging
contexts [2]. PoSr substantially
describes the overlapping network
transaction spaces that people traverse synchronously and asynchronously with others to maintain and
use social relationships via various
apps, mobile services, sensors, platforms, technologies and conversation spaces. PoSr represents the
complexity people (and machines)
face in negotiating a connected
world while managing more relationships in terms of the layering
and density of connections between
correspondents. This impacts how
inclusive knowledge about each
others' activities is communicated
under these circumstances. we use
PoSr to explore human adaptation
and consequent behavior change
when what were formerly synchronous communication events become
immersed within a communications
environment that is increasingly
asynchronous within the streets and
sidewalks of our communities.
we are not proposing a dualist
model with increasingly divergent
"realities." The connectivity can
be with members of the local community who simply are not immediately present as well as people in
an extended community not based
on locale.

Circumstances and Issues
Social Relations and Changes in
Infrastructure
More and more people are using
mobile devices when engaged in

basic human activities such as eating, while in lavatories (public and
private), driving, walking, waiting,
eating, commuting, etc. In a study
released earlier this year, it was
found that out of 1000 people surveyed, nearly 75% of them had used

between people and infrastructure.
For the past four decades, as computer systems have improved, there
has been a continued and expanding migration to network services
as both end-users and companies
discovered different benefits from

Time zones do not seem to matter
much.
their mobile devices in the lavatory,
with the primary functions being to
read a text or answer a call [3]. In
some ways, this is to be expected as
reading material shifts from analog
to digital and the display devices,
previously solely for communication, now incorporate other interactive functions. There have been
many instances where Applin has
been waiting for a coffee or other
service in the community and
observed a majority of the patrons
connected to devices. People also
seem to be actively talking and
texting in traffic, often holding the
mobile in one hand while gripping
the steering wheel in the other.
In a broad study on "Cell Phone
Induced Failures of Visual Attention," Strayer & Johnston [4] indicate that simple conversation did
not add to driver distractability [5]
but that several other studies have
found that working memory tasks
[6], [5], mental arithmetic tasks [7],
[8], and reasoning tasks [9] disrupt
driving performance [4].
In short, listening to verbal material does not seem to cause the same
kind of cognition error when driving as cellular phone usage does.
The authors suggest "that cellularphone use disrupts [driving] performance by diverting attention to an
engaging cognitive context other
than the one immediately associated
with driving" [4].
One important factor of what
might motivate people to engage
in this behavior relates to significant changes in social relations and
interactions in the complex interface

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

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wINTEr 2013

going online. Previously, most
people could exist and function in
contemporary society without needing to own or operate a computer or
go online. Although many people in
the world still do not own computers, many do own cell phones. Even
those phones that do not have smartphone data capabilities are used as
a foundation for community communication via text. That said, many
facets of modern life are beginning
to be designed to require not only
network connectivity, but also computer access.
we refer to this as "Forced
Compliance." Forced compliance
is a subset of what Fussel [10]
describes (with regard to the selfadjusting baseball style cap) as
being something that:
demeans the buyer and user,
making him do the work formerly thought the obligation
of the seller, who used to have
to stock numerous sizes. It's
like such other features of the
contemporary scene as the jet
plane and the supermarket,
where convenience for the
seller is disguised by publicity
and fraud to pass for the convenience for the buyer [10].
This has been described in
great detail first by Toffler [11],
who coined the term "Prosumer."
Forced compliance differs from
the idea of the prosumer in that it
is concerned primarily with the
process and lack of choice for a
labor task; the notion being that
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