I’m close to having replaced the bulk of our standard household and personal care products with green alternatives. As I reach my stride in green pride, I feel almost heady with freedom from cruelty, excess packaging, and harmful ingredients for people and planet. I read and nearly weep: “No animal testing or animal ingredients,” “No parabens or lauryl/laureth sulfate,” “Pure, natural, organic,” “Biodegradable.” I practically want to tattoo the leaping bunny and the recycling symbol on my body. But instead of asking Kat Von D to pencil me in (or on me), it looks like I have to take a page from Bon Qui Qui’s book and call secooridy instead.
According to a recent study by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), some products from my favorite brands—Jason, Alba, Seventh Generation, Ecover, and others—contain a carcinogenic contaminant called 1,4-dioxane, a byproduct of petrochemicals used in manufacturing. You won’t find 1,4-dioxane on the label. Instead, the OCA advises, look for ingredients with the following in their names: myreth, oleth, laureth, ceteareth, any other eth, PEG, polyethylene, polyethylene glycol, polyoxyethylene, or oxynol. Apparently, claims of “organic” or “certified organic” provide consumers with no guarantees. Instead, says the OCA, “look for products that are certified under the USDA National Organic Program (or a similar German program) and products that bear the ‘USDA Organic’ seal.”
In buying green, consumers are showing a genuine desire to do the right thing, and telling companies that we want safe, effective products that are also environmentally responsible and humane. This is not too much to ask. Unfortunately, whether by design or through negligence (which is it?*), companies that put marketing claims on their packaging that aren’t fully substantiated breach our trust. It feels like the OCA’s findings bring to light deliberate deception, and that does not make me feel the love I was way too quick to associate with bottles of shampoo, body lotion, and dishwashing liquid.
Still, I’m not ready to give up on green or even the companies in the report. I’ll just sharpen my label-reading skills and stop assuming that a brand with a cute koala or a moving mantra ultimately has all my interests at heart. I should’ve know that, as with all new love, the honeymoon had to end some time. Here’s hoping that our future together will be based on honesty, mutual respect, and a commitment to the welfare of the family.
*Seventh Generation seemed to respond thoughtfully to the findings, but this bad note still creates some dissonance for me. I couldn’t find anything on Hain Celestial’s website responding to the report, but the L.A. Times coverage included this quote from the company’s director of corporate consumer relations: “We are committed to selling products without detectable levels of 1,4-dioxane . . . and will review all formulations accordingly.”
April 8th, 2008
When I was a kid, we used to go to the Englishtown flea market, located on a vast expanse of dirt or mud (depending on the weather) in suburban-rural Englishtown, NJ. We’d get on the road around 4:30 a.m. and take the hour’s drive to buy old and new stuff you didn’t much find anywhere else, at least not all in one place.
This was in the 70s and early 80s, before the dawn of the big-box store and crazy-mad access to cheap goods of all sorts. Englishtown was a ritual and an adventure. We’d come home with dollhouse miniatures and tomato plants, underwear and antiques, purses and even once, an Irish Setter puppy.
Besides the shopping, we’d eat: old-fashioneds from (now defunct) Mickey’s Donut Land (en route—Route 18, to be exact), Italian sausage sandwiches, hand-cut French fries with vinegar, homemade lemonade, burritos, crumb cake, and hot dogs, all before the people at home had had their morning coffee.
Today, I can buy pretty much whatever I want and then some within a 10-mile radius of my house. I never thought about how that happened until pretty recently. I have to admit, walking into Target, I always felt a little of that old Englishtown thrill anticipating the surprises and bargains (if not the food). I never really wondered how a pillow could cost just $4. I never stopped to ask how, where, or by whom something was made. It was all there, brand new, standing at attention, just waiting for me.
So why do I refer to the thrill in the past tense with Target and so much more still a mere mile from my house? Like a loose piece of yarn in a sweater, if you start to tug at it, it’s bound to unravel.
My little reality check turned obsession began with The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan (see my 11/15/07 blog post). Upshot: Our system of industrial food production is harmful to people, animals, and the environment, but lucrative to corporate interests. Uh-oh.
This got me thinking very seriously about animal welfare, the environment, and corporate greed. Time to get the kids involved! My 7-year-old daughter and I read Ingrid Newkirk’s 50 Awesome Ways Kids Can Help Animals: Fun and Easy Ways to Be a Kind Kid. This made me aware of, among other things, non-mandatory animal testing of so many of our household and personal care products especially, including everything from sandwich bags to dental floss to mascara. This is testing that no regulatory body requires, but that companies conduct anyway, I’m assuming out of habit (it’s part of business as usual) and to ensure the safety of its customers (at least that’s what they’ll tell you if you ask them). I followed up with a related Ingrid Newkirk book: Making Kind Choices: Everyday Ways to Enhance Your Life Through Earth- and Animal-Friendly Living.
And then:
Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century by Alex Steffen
An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore
The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists by Michael Brower and Warren Leon, Union of Concerned Scientists
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World by Bill Clinton
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming by Laurie David and Cambria Gordon
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, Camille Kingsolver, and Steven L. Hopp
Plus numerous web resources on how to live while doing your best not to trample human rights, poison yourself, destroy the environment, or use animals in a prodigious and irresponsible manner. Here’s just one:
Co-op America: Economic Action for a Just Planet
After a lifetime of accepting the status quo, never really wanting to know what I feared I couldn’t change, I’m happy to report that the thrill is back. Yes, I’m thrilled to find my way to the truth, reckon with it, and learn how to make responsible choices. I’m only a beginner in this process, but I now believe that the way my little family lives in this world can be more positive than negative in its impact. Unlike the excitement of purchasing cheap goods in reckless ignorance of the sacrifices that made them possible, this is a genuine thrill that keeps on thrilling.
Now if I could just get a Mickey’s old-fashioned with that…
December 21st, 2007
You can’t read The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan and expect to go on with your life, shopping and eating like it never happened. The cow is out of the CAFO (confined animal feeding operation), or so we hope.
Pollan eloquently exposes the unconscionable treatment of animals, including us, as it happens, in the production, marketing, and consumption of what we’ve come to call “food.” I use this term loosely, as do the many agribusinesses and “food” conglomerates who want you to believe, for the sake of business as usual, that cows eat corn and ingredients like high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) are wholesome and natural. (The only thing pure about HFCS may be its evil.)
Any one of the reasons why we all need to change how and what we eat is sufficient; the combined argument is airtight. If the utterly heinous treatment of animals doesn’t get your goat, maybe shameless corporate profiteering, public deception, or the obesity epidemic will.
In “Unhappy Meals” (New York Times, January 28, 2007), Pollan looks in particular at the impact on human health of processed foods, and has some sage advice on what to do about it. “Eat food” is his first suggestion, which is deceptively simple, since most of us aren’t sure what that even means anymore. Here’s something concrete to take to the market (trading “super” for “farmer’s” will solve the problem instantly): “Especially avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number — or that contain high-fructose corn syrup. None of these characteristics are necessarily harmful in and of themselves, but all of them are reliable markers for foods that have been highly processed.”
You might think that eating organic is an easy answer, but organic farming and food distribution on an industrial scale still use up our rapidly diminishing supply of fossil fuel at an alarming rate. Plus, your organic milk and “free-range” chicken from large-scale operations still come from animals whose lives are very much like those of their traditional counterparts. Today’s organic standards as implemented on an industrial scale do something for the healthfulness of the food produced, but little for the animals used in the process, or the overall sustainability in terms of energy consumption.
A good part of the answer lies in healthful, sustainable local food sources. Pollan’s blog has some great suggestions for finding options in your area (see the May 21, 2006 post “Food From a Farm Near Your”) and will also keep you thinking about and acting on this issue in general.
So pass the locally grown peas at your table and declare the food fight on!
July 10th, 2007
I recently read a great article in New York Magazine called “Some Dark Thoughts on Happiness” by Jennifer Senior. The article explores lifestyles and characteristics of the unhappy, aspiring happy, and happy happy as revealed by research and anecdote.
Happy is a funny word. The more you say it, the weirder it gets. Not unlike the pursuit of happiness. Turns out that the more we try to make ourselves happy through acquisitions and achievements, the more disappointed we may become. People who think it’s the next thing they do or get that’s going to bring them fulfillment have pretty much mistaken the destination for the journey. Similarly, thinking that the next heartbreak or challenge we overcome will be our last, that the sun will come out tomorrow, can be a way to get through the day, but isn’t a strategy with legs either.
The sheer number of possibilities and choices we face is a contributing factor in our ongoing sense that there’s always something better out there. Psychologist Barry Schwartz calls this the “paradox of choice,” which he explores in detail in his book by the same name (on my must-read list). In one study, a Columbia University researcher set out 6 jars of jam in a gourmet shop, offering sampling customers a dollar off their favorite one. Another day, there were 24 jams to taste with the same offer. While more people sampled when there were 24 choices, only 3% purchased, while 30% bought jam when there were only 6 to try. Daily life, with the proliferation of options at every turn, feels a lot more like 24 jars.
We also have the sense that other people are happier than we are (I also think everyone is older than I am, but more and more, that’s proving not to be true either). Take A-list actors who want to become singers and rock stars who want to become actors. I suspect it’s not just about fully realizing all of your potential so much as figuring the other guy made a better, happier career choice. And your perception doesn’t shift by knowing he thinks the same of you.
A lot of our ability to be happy without much muss and fuss is genetic. In The Happiness Hypothesis, author Jonathan Haidt talks about winning the “cortical lottery” or not. Still, besides your genetic lot in life, complaining also seems like a terrible bad habit, something we do to fill space when we don’t know what else to do with ourselves. It reminds me of Seinfeld’s George Costanza who was most successful when he did the exact opposite of what his instincts told him to do. Maybe the chronically kvetchy should just pretend to be happy, to see the bright side, to do something good for someone else, to say some words of appreciation each time the urge to complain comes on. Then maybe, just maybe, the feelings will follow. Haidt points to meditation, cognitive therapy, or for a quicker if more fraught solution, Prozac.
The discipline of “positive psychology,” formalized by Dr. Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania, offers this happiness formula: Happiness=Biological Set Point + Conditions of Your Life + Voluntary Activities You Do (H=S+C+V). In this equation, there are things we can each do to improve our sense of well-being, genetics aside. In the “conditions of your life” department, as Haidt describes, are reducing noise, shortening your commute, having a sense of control, feeling good about your appearance, and having good relationships. In terms of “voluntary activities that you do,” the key is to find your strengths and regularly apply them.
Short of learning to live like Buddha with no worldly attachments, these are positive steps anyone can take. Kvetches, garden-variety depressives, and pessimists might not choose to see it that way. They’ve probably always hated math anyway.
September 26th, 2006
I used to like to give advice. No problem too big or small. I had a story, encouraging words, answers. I imagined myself the future host of a radio call-in show, helping the angst-ridden with my compassion and insight. Other people’s problems seemed so easy to solve.
Why am I so invested in other people’s successes and failures? What’s in it for me?
I think women are taught that it’s better to give than to receive. We feel duty-bound to fix things for others, to make everything alright. Unfortunately, this trap can disable rather than empower the people we are trying to help, put us in the cross-hairs of blame, shift the focus off us, and take time and energy away from our true responsibilities.
It’s hard to kick a habit. When someone talks to me about a problem, I start to feel the optimism of the gambler, placing just one more bet in the hopes of that elusive pay-off. I can feel it in my bones—this next one will be a winner. My ears perk, my gaze fixes, my mind sorts options.
But giving advice and investing in the outcome are dangerous habits. Like telling a secret you’ve promised to keep, the satisfaction is fleeting while the risk of retribution persists.
This is not to say that you can’t give responsibly. Instead of thinking, “How can I help you?,” I’m trying to think, “Will you help yourself? How?” Responsible support can only be offered, not required, and maybe looks something like this:
• Be there. Focus and be present.
• Listen without judgment. Often, all someone needs is a sounding board to figure it out for himself.
• Don’t offer solutions. People don’t do things they don’t want to do anyway.
• Give the boot to anyone who doesn’t assume personal responsibility or thinks he has an unlimited right to your time and attention.
I’m not alone in a penchant for advice, so the flip side of this is learning how to qualify my own sources of support. I’m beginning to discern the advice that I like because it lets me keep doing what I’m doing regardless of what I’m getting, and authentic support that can make meaningful change however difficult to accept.
I see now that input from friends, family, and even perfect strangers might have value, but how I respond to it and what I do with it is my business. If someone expects me to be accountable to him simply because everyone is entitled to his opinion, it’s not ultimately about me and my well-being. That kind of giving is all about the giver.
Take it from me. Or better yet, don’t.
July 5th, 2006
Thanks to my dear pal Scott, I’m reading Lighting the Way by Karenna Gore Schiff. The book profiles lesser known women in history. So far, I’ve learned about Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mother Jones, Alice Hamilton, and Frances Perkins. Ahead are Virginia Durr, Septima Poinsette Clark, Dolores Huerta, Helen Rodriguez-Trias, and Gretchen Buchenholz.
You may have heard of some of these amazing women, but you probably aren’t sure who they were or what they did (or do). Chances are slim that they came up in your American history class. (In one of my high school history classes, the teacher assigned each student the name of a political figure so he could anonymously read out our grades. When I protested that they were all men, he named me Elizabeth Holtzman, so whenever he called out my grade, everyone knew how I did.)
All of these women were grass-roots activists who were tireless advocates for people—women, children, people of color, immigrants, the poor—who were and still are used by the establishment to fuel profit and maintain the power structure.
If you were taking a history class today, would you learn about these women? I know multiculturalism and diversity have been themes for some time in curriculum standards/development and among educational publishers, but how does it look on the ground in the classroom? What are kids learning about social responsibility and activism? How do they see the fabric of history woven and by whom? Do they understand the role of the individual? How do schools, parents, and communities teach our kids, and more importantly, show them by example how to work for social justice, starting with the way we treat each other every day?
The specific examples of injustice that these nine women fought are vitally important to understand, both unto themselves and as terrifying examples of what people can, have, and continue to do to other people. From lynching to child labor to perilous and exploitive conditions for workers among other crimes…the list is long.
Important laws have been written that protect children, require safety standards and specify working conditions, outlaw segregation, address public health, make an effort to improve conditions for the poor and marginalized, and on and on. Yes, we’ve made strides. But so far, no law has ended exploitation, racism, sexism, discrimination, inequality, hate, violence, greed, corruption. In this, I’m struck by how little has changed.
Fundamental, in-our-bones change is up to all of us, isn’t it? Meantime, what if national policy and corporate strategy, to qualify for implementation, had to meet one simple criterion: “Is this good for children? families? people?” No? Then you can’t do it. Go back and figure it out. I’m positive that corporations don’t have to offer consumers crap to be filthy, stinkin’ rich. We still need stuff. We still have to buy stuff. Why not good-for-us stuff? The profits on good can be plenty huge.
Sure, we’d have some trouble agreeing on the definition of “good,” but that effort could take place through a powerful series of national, local, and one-on-one conversations…Town hall meetings on good. Cabinet meetings on good. Congressional debates on good. Board meetings on good. Strategy sessions on good. Oprah on good. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on good (definitely, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on good, not to mention on hilarious—would that have to be separate?). School board meetings on good. Water coolers on good. Parent-teacher meetings on good. Newspaper editorials on good.
This could be good.
May 15th, 2006
I just attended a screening of A Pillar of Salt: The Angry Woman Syndrome by Hafiz Farid, a Newark, NJ-based filmmaker. This film and others were part of a film festival sponsored by BlueWaveNJ, a grassroots organization whose mission is to counteract the Republican administration’s right-wing agenda and effect positive change through community education and action. BlueWaveNJ tackles critical issues like social security, health care reform, media reform, reproductive rights, and the war in Iraq, among others.
A Pillar of Salt is a compilation of interviews with women talking about why they’re angry. Most of the women are women of color, some with public personas, some not. Mr. Farid and one of the women who appeared in the film answered questions from the audience and helped put the film in context. As the filmmaker explained, the film’s major themes were sexism, racism, and less explicitly, the misinterpretation of religious texts to justify (in)human deeds. Mr. Farid sees the film’s purpose as generating awareness of and dialogue about the mistreatment of women, especially women of color, in our chauvinistic, paternalistic, racist society. Some of the women spoke of sexual abuse, violence, and the absence of fathers. Seeking help through therapy and spirituality were themes for healing.
Women who see A Pillar of Salt may feel the film is preaching to the choir, although there are plenty of girls and women who will hear echoes of their own pain and shame and begin to understand that they are not alone and they are not to blame. The audience who stands to learn the most, I think, are all the boys and men who fall along the continuum of awareness of the fact that they can easily misuse their gender privilege to harm and debase women and most times get away with it.
Rape, incest, domestic violence are all heinous and blatant examples of the misuse of male power. Paradoxically, these acts may spring from a visceral sense of utter powerlessness. But women didn’t create this situation and cannot change it alone. Men must learn that using their brute force to overwhelm women diminishes, weakens, and sickens us all. A man’s impulse to possess, dominate, and control a woman doesn’t make him a man. A man who debases women is not a man at all.
While A Pillar of Salt deals with some of the worst of it, it doesn’t get to the daily, nuanced, more subtle but no less cumulatively insidious diminishments of women and girls that are a regular part of domestic and broader social life. Nice, seemingly respectful men who mean well and consider themselves enlightened can’t see the ways they use their privilege against women…their wives, daughters, mothers, sisters, co-workers. And many women don’t see it either. We feel it, yes, in our anger and frustration, but we have a hard time articulating it. We may think it’s our problem to solve, that if we just put more compassion, empathy, analysis, energy against it, we’ll get somewhere. But without a shared consciousness of the true nature and dimensions of this problem, on the part of men and women alike, we can’t get real traction.
A film like A Pillar of Salt is tremendous at laying bare the grosser aspects of the problem and starting a dialogue. But every one of us, every day, needs to look at what we do—how we act, ineract, and react—and why. Personal responsibility and constant vigilance will be necessary to change behavior and change the paradigm. Until then, equality is an aspiration, but I’ll take a genuine work-in-progress over a tragically bad norm any day. How about you?
On a personal note, my deepest gratitude to my cousin Donna for helping me understand the concept of privilege, recognize it when I see it, and figure out what I can do about it. She is an inspiration and a role model on so many levels.
March 21st, 2006
Yesterday, my daughter brought home a fundraiser for her elementary school that involves completing postcards (in her own adorable handwriting) to hit up Grandma and Aunt Denise for magazine subscriptions. In exchange for giving up 5-7 names and addresses of would-be subscribers (who stand to save 75% off the newsstand price!), she would receive a Smencil—a scented pencil. The sponsor, QSP Reader’s Digest, indicates in the instruction sheet that “…these names and addresses will be used only for this one-time mailing…”.
From Miranda’s perspective, there’s only one important thing about this: those who participate get a Smencil, those who don’t don’t. And she needs a Smencil. Truly, madly, deeply needs a Smencil. Sure, she has lots of other pencils from countless goodie bags. But not one Smencil in the licensed-character-donning lot. A Smencil is the pencil she has been waiting for all her five-and-a-half-year-long life. In the shadow of the Smencil, the ordinary pencil is nothing. As far as she’s concerned, all those other pencils can take the Number 2 for #2s and get out of town.
I’ve got no beef with the Smencil. I’m sure it’s a lovely and uniquely odoriferous writing implement. My problem is this: Why are corporations, with our school system’s permission, using our kids to sell their products?
The kind of marketing/advertising to children that we see on television, in magazines, and online is a little less subtle and easier to explain to kids. I tell my daughter (who used to say “I want that that that that that that that” as her tiny finger pointed to every colorful plastic object on the screen or page) that just because something looks fun doesn’t mean it is, that the people who made it just want you to want it so your parents will buy it, that it doesn’t matter a whole lot (at all?) to them if it’s good for kids or bad for kids, and a lot of it is, in fact, bad for kids.
When I told my daughter that we weren’t going to fill out postcards that trade names of friends and relatives for a Smencil, she burst into tears. I explained that the company was using kids to sell their magazines, and that really wasn’t fair or right. Then, I did two stupid things to undermine the significance of this lesson: 1) promised to buy her a Smencil; and 2) I told her I’d think some more about whether we would participate. The buy-your-own-Smencil deal could only help renew her conviction that this was all about the coveted and elusive Smencil. The I’ll-think-about-it statement was genuine, but something I should’ve kept to myself. In a moment of weakness, amidst my daughter’s tears, I fleetingly doubted my conviction that this sort of thing is just plain wrong, that there are better ways to raise money for schools.
Speaking of beefs, my daughter also brought home from school a drawing contest that would get the winner some sort of gift certificate and her school a new computer. I was mystified by the challenge: draw Spuddy doing something fun. Great! Let’s draw Spuddy doing something fun! Spuddy?! Who’s Spuddy? The answer to this mystery could be found on the contest sponsor’s website. Seems Simplot Foods—a $3 billion food and agribusiness corporation—“incents” schools who use their foodservice products to be loyal customers with various “rewards and resources.” Assuming these are wholesome, nutritious products, it’s fine to make these offers to school officials, but why are our kids brought into it in any way, shape, or form?
The Smencil beats Spuddy’s potato-shaped self any day, but neither is appropriate to induce our kids to sell (shill?) on behalf of corporations, even if their schools stand to earn a useful buck or two in the process. I understand the necessity of fundraising, but we have to choose efforts that teach our kids the right lessons and not the wrong ones.
It’s time to write a note to the principal. Now if I could only find my Smencil.
February 8th, 2006
When the holidays roll around, I wince. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the spirit of giving, but I don’t like the relentless pressure to consume, to find the perfect gift for people who already have everything (and there are a lot us in my corner of the universe). There’s virtually nothing any of us needs (that can be bought in a store anyway) that we don’t already have…and then some.
Over the last few years, I’ve tried to scale back the gift exchange as much as possible, focusing mostly on the kids. (My list is still a spreadsheet, but it’s a lot shorter than it used to be.) Others in my gift-giving circle feel similarly smothered by the excess. We’ve either agreed to eliminate the gifts altogether, or we do something like give each child a book and donate the rest of what we would’ve spent to charity. Where no gift truce can be reached, I focus on giving consumables like food or art supplies that can be used and enjoyed and never seen again.
It’s not just that none of us needs another sweater or box of potpourri or plush toy. We buy into the modern tradition of giving too much because we’ve been sold a bill of goods (a.k.a., BoG) that holiday bliss depends more on the stuff we buy than the quality of our relationships, how we conduct ourselves, and how we care for others. Sure, shopping is good for the economy. I’m all for it if you’re shopping responsibly, but not under the influence of messages that dictate better, bigger, and most of all, more. Our culture says you must consume to be happy and show your love. But greed and profit, not the well-being of our families or personal economies, are behind this.
Two other big BoGs meant to separate you from your money that disregard what really matters under the guise of the pursuit of happiness:
The Marriage BoG
The first part of this is to confound wedding and marriage. Compared to the complexities of planning a self-respecting wedding, the marriage part has to be easy. Your wedding and honeymoon should be as plush as possible. Spend as much as you can afford, or more if necessary. Don’t worry…you’ll make some of it back in gifts you think you need like fine china, crystal glasses, and fancy cookware. These essentials will pose in a cabinet (if you ever take them out of the original boxes) while you eat pizza on paper plates. With a little help from Dr. Phil, your relationship will virtually maintain itself…provided you stay slim and sexy and keep your inner nag at bay.
The Baby BoG
Babies need lots of things, and parents who really care will have them all on hand even before the baby arrives. Forget that a high-chair won’t be used for months. When the day comes, you want to be prepared. The gift registry at your local baby stuff mega-warehouse will tell you exactly what you’ll need to feed, clothe, entertain, house, and transport a baby properly. It’s a very long list. All good parents have these things (bad ones don’t). While you use your loving arms for managing all the stuff, your baby can drift off peacefully to the sounds of electronic music in a bassinet that rocks itself. Soon, he’ll sleep through the night and feed himself so you can reclaim your free time for shopping, sex, and body sculpting.
I declare war. It’s blog vs. BoG. May the best abbreviation or acronym win.
December 13th, 2005
A few months back, we helped my aunt select and set up a very nice Apple iMac G5 with OS X. Her old Gateway was acting up, and she felt it time to invest in something new. She uses the computer for a little email, viewing/printing photos that she receives from family/friends, some news, and a regular game of solitaire. That’s about it. Nonetheless, we chose the Mac for its elegance and usability (at least for the initiated). Her grandkids are sure impressed.
My aunt wanted a “Kindergarten computer,” one that she could use like she does any familiar appliance. Without knowing it, she was wishing for something out of Donald Norman’s vision of a personal network of smart appliances he described in The Invisible Computer designed to meet our individual needs rather than promise to accomplish some spate of abstract tasks. No luck. Instead, she has found herself at the bottom of a steep learning curve.
The marketing of technology products/services and the reality of using them don’t jibe. “Easy” and “Simple” are claims that are made liberally, but the promise is consistently unfulfilled. Without some help from people who actually care about her and are willing to spend a good deal of time, my aunt would have nothing but an expensive prop on her desk. Even with our loving commitment to get her comfortable and competent, the barriers even to the most basic proficiency are daunting.
I’ll stand up for the virtues of technology for communication, access, learning, and productivity (although this one cuts both ways). I personally take a problem-based approach, learning what I need to know only when I need to know it. This kind of contextual learning ensures that it sticks. But this is my work, and I’m motivated to figure things out. At least a little.
For most of us, getting our minds around the arcane paradigm of each tool requires a substantial investment that may never pay off. For those who weren’t seeped in it or haven’t become enthusiasts anyway by some genetic accident, the most they can reasonably hope for is to get a thing or two done, if only under the shadow of the very real possibility that something will go wrong. The path to minor success can be impeded by any number of garden-variety but time-consuming human, machine, system, and application errors anywhere in the process of an interaction.
So for now and the foreseeable future, my aunt, like so many technology users (a.k.a., the overwhelming majority of American society), will experience feelings of discomfort and inadequacy when she looks at, thinks about, or most of all, tries to use her computer (cell phone, printer-copier-fax-scanner, tv, microwave…the list goes on). Maybe the marketing should be a little more honest: “Using our product isn’t easy at all until you know what you’re doing. That’ll take some serous time and effort. Even then, you’re going to run into problems. It’s pretty likely that you’ll never use more than a fraction of the features and functions, but there may be one or two you stumble on and learn and love. Good luck with all that.”
November 22nd, 2005
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