Pleasures and Anxieties of the Networked Refrigerator

Preface: I have a propensity for starting conversations in my head then finishing them out loud. I assume this is why my final comments on Tuesday resulted in a transition from head nods in the first half to confused looks in the second. I want to sharpen my points here.

Hodge explains that computing has detached itself from specific locations and proliferated to "anywhere and wherever," especially thanks to high-speed wireless networks and mobile phones. Thus, the ambient availability of networks has taken us from tethered computing locations to the "always-on" computing environment we are constantly inside. Hodge does not want to fear-monger however, as the always-on network is both pleasurable in some ways and anxiety-inducing in others (Hodge, 3). While he focuses mainly on digital media genres like the GIF or the selfie, we access these genres through devices which creates certain relationships with our devices, engendering different kinds of pleasures and anxieties in relation to each device.

As I mentioned in class, I have a much different relationship with my phone than I do with my laptop. My phone, to me, is a social device I use to communicate with friends and family. That is not to say that I do not use my laptop to do the same thing on occasion, but that I use my phone primarily for social purposes which thus creates social pleasures and anxieties more readily. For example, I use Snapchat as my primary mode of communication with my friends. Thus, I have pleasure-inducing interactions when using my phone for Snapchat. However, many of my friends do not use Snapchat as a primary vehicle for communication, and I therefore have to traverse these relationships carefully (don't snap them too much, am I snapping them something they will respond to, etc) which also gives me anxiety in relation to my phone. In regards to my laptop, I have many academic documents saved on it which sometimes provides me reading/learning pleasures. From time to time though, flipping open my laptop makes me anxiety when the impostor syndrome is prevalent. In summary, my networked phone and laptop provide me different pleasures and anxieties based upon my different uses of them. Networked pleasures and anxieties are always present in some way because of their ambient, always-on-ness (See Hodge's use of boyd's 'always-on lifestyle,' 3).

When I then brought up refrigerators, I saw the confused looks I often get when I fail to explicitly state the link between objects. The image of the networked refrigerator depicted above is what I had in mind when I began speaking about household appliances. Refrigerators, as I would think most of us imagine them, are something akin to a large, electricly powered box(es) that keep food items cold through compressors that cool the air inside. However, always-on computing has creeped into the home, a space once thought of as a respite from the anxieties of the outside world, our jobs, proliferating technology, etc. Now, you can buy a refrigerator which you can connect to your phone and control such things as shopping lists, eating schedules, even see who is currently at the refrigerator door (https://www.samsung.com/us/explore/family-hub-refrigerator/overview/). You can now network yourself at all times to your once benign home appliances.

The network creeping similarly applies to security systems. While ADT and other security companies need to network to your home to monitor it through window and door detectors, you can now control the arming and disarming of the entire system through your phone. Additionally, you can buy door locks you can lock and unlock from a remote location. Moreover, ADT and other security companies will install cameras within your home that you can monitor from work or elsewhere, spying on your own domestic space. Now, instead of the home being a location to turn off or escape the always-on-ness of external life, always-on computing has networked our home. The externalities we could once escape is marketed as applicable conveniences we need now in an increasingly networked world. The home is now the "Smart Home™.

I am in agreement with Hodge that we should be cautious to go into full panic mode or unrepentant bliss with such networked objects; these poles are increasingly ineffective in understanding lived realities. Rather, considering the relationships I previously mentioned about my phone and my laptop, what relationships are engendered with the networked refrigerator or door? Or, more generally, what kind of new relationship is being made between us and our homes with the networking of the home's once disconnected and discrete features? As Hodge would say, we sometimes feel pleasure when interacting with these networked items and sometimes anxiety. One might feel a sense of accomplishment updating your grocery list at any time while on the other hand you might feel pestered that your refrigerator is reminding you you're out of butter and you have to go to the store to buy more. Or you may feel safer by remotely arming your security system from your work cubicle, but you may also feel anxiety that you're at constant risk of being robbed. The networked home certainly affords you opportunities to better your life in certain respects, but also imposes an ambient anxiety that you now carry with you. Its difficult to discern on an individual basis whether the networked home is a net positive or negative, but its at least considerable that our once domestic space has lost its enclosure. In other words, our home, through smart-ifying, is being changed and this change seems to be expanding the home space or even eliminating it's discreteness.

Hodge, James. "Vernaculars: The Always-On Image." May 2018. Accessed November 7, 2018. https://canvas.uchicago.edu/courses/17156/files?preview=1744158.

Samsung. "Samsung Smart Refrigerator." Accessed November 7, 2018. https://canvas.uchicago.edu/courses/17156/files?preview=1744158.