Snapchat owns my soul

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I decided to track the usage of the device I use the most, my phone. If this assignment was done 5 years ago, that wouldn’t have been the case. With the proliferation of smartphones, I often find myself having no need for my laptop outside of strictly academic purposes. I tracked my day from 9:30am to 10:00pm and graphed not only how many times I used my phone, but also how I was using my phone.

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I am in class from 10:40-2:30 and probably used my phone about 20 times during that time frame. As such, the most common ways I was using my phone throughout the entire day were for social media, checking the time, and using the Internet in general. I also noticed that I used my phone to check social media a lot more than I initially believed myself to typically do during class. I also noticed that I would get distracted with some topic, usually something briefly mentioned in class, and get lost in an Internet hole where one Wikipedia article led to the next until I was reading up on some wildly irrelevant topic 5 minutes later.
I also primarily used my phone to listen to music in between classes in order to avoid socializing with people on my route to each class. However, what this data doesn’t represent is the couple of times I used my phone to listen to music with others, without headphones. It made me wonder if music streaming services like Spotify, track the amount of times users listen to music with and without headphones and if/how that affects business decisions. As Wang notes, “integrating big data and thick data provides organizations a more complete context of any given situation” (2013). I was noticing that although I did use my phone to share in the experience of listening to music with others, I was most often using my phone to escape situations I didn’t want to be engaged in.

That changed later in the day when I went to the Valentine’s party hosted by my 3rd grade class I student taught in. I used my phone to take pictures 5 times that day and all of those times were during the party. Instead of using my phone to disengage, I was using it as a medium to further engage with my former students. What was also different was that I was using my phone’s camera app to take these pictures for myself rather than on Snapchat with the purpose of sharing them with a wider audience.

❤❤❤ My Valentines ❤❤❤

Another trend I noticed was that my phone use decreased throughout the day before spiking between 7:30-10pm, most of which was spent on social media, sharing pictures of other social situations unlike the ones I experienced at the Valentine’s party. The time that it decreased the most, 5pm-7:30pm, I was watching Netflix with friends. However, I did notice that media was still mediating human relations because it seemed like a lot of time was spent just trying to pick a show to watch. Our own individual interests had to converge in order to pick something we could all agree on. Despite 5 people working together to select a show and having 4 different user accounts on the same Netflix, only my account recorded the data in order to shape future recommendations. This is an example of big data not revealing the relationships interspersed throughout it. As Bell notes, “Most data doesn’t exist in isolation. Data really likes being in relationships. Not all of those relationships are immediately visible” (2015:15). I wonder how Netflix could incorporate this common context that many users find themselves in to better their services.

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I can think of one company that has made such alterations, although I’m not sure how accurate or influential they are. Facebook used to only offer a “like” button for posts. However, in 2016 they introduced five additional “reactions”: love, angry, haha, wow, and sad.

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This way, Facebook can form a deeper understanding of how people are interacting with posts in a way that provides an element of thick data in addition to big data. Wang explains that this data is “brought to light using qualitative, ethnographic research methods that uncover people’s emotions, stories, and models of their world” (2013). Even though it only provides a limited picture of how actual humans are interacting and experiencing technology, I think it adds a depth in context that can enrich our future experiences.
Knowing this and being an active user of my phone and its related technology, I admit I am very uneducated when it comes to the fundamentals of how these devices work. I think it would be incredibly beneficial to incorporate one’s experience with an app and a knowledge of the technology behind it, to further alter and tailor apps to the human experience. For example, I know in Chicago, many schools are introducing coding classes as early as kindergarten/first grade. These students develop the skills and knowledge to create their own apps and games that are directly related to their interests and experience levels. Here is a video of Chance the Rapper "crashing" one such classes and donating money to Chicago Public Schools to support widespread access to this education.



Bell poses the question, “if we know how to be critical of data, do we know how to be critical of the sense-making tools?” (2015:22). In class, we discussed our fears of the powers and potentials of “the machine.” A lot of those fears came from the unknown and the possibility the “the machine” is using us. However, with more education on the underlying processes that power “the machine,” I think we can ensure that it remains human-centered and a platform for humans to better the lives of other humans. As such, I think it is very easy to develop knowledge necessary to be critical of data. By learning about that data in a much deeper way, I think we can also learn how to be more critical of the “sense-making tools.” Perhaps this will lead to fewer tragedies like the one that is the latest Snapchat update. ;-)