I have experienced three particular problems with my phone that I would like to evaluate. Each problem is viewed differently when evaluated for sociotechnial gap.
The first is the existence of of subscription based sms messaging service. The particular subscription I have is to a "GreenEarth" group that I had some interest in during the summer. After I subscribed, it turns out that they send out sms updates quite often. At this point, it has become quite annoying to receive 4 "GreenEarth" text messages a day, apart from personal ones that I actually am interested in receiving. I have tried to unsubscribe by sending an unsubscribe message to the service, but the 5-digit code is not recognized as a number, and thus I have no way of avoiding the messages at this point
The second problem is related to memory and data storage. Each of my phones, and most other phones, store their data on SIM cards or on the limited phone memory. My phone was recently destroyed in an accident; I did not lose my SIM card, but I did lose the phone memory and all the valuable information stored there. Now I have no access to that information that I once believed to be saved for me. The phone gave me the option of using phone memory to store information; it might have even been the default setting. This causes problem because in my everyday social activities, the possibility of phone destruction definitely exists. For some reason, cell phone providers have yet to build a networked repository of my saved information. This is likely due to another social requirement for technical systems: privacy. It seems to me that society has an illusion of privacy, and most services do a good amount to maintain that illusion. But, if we recognize how, regardless of our desires, our information is out there to be retrieved by virtually anybody, we might be able to rework constrained systems such as this SIM memory based phones.
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I agree that receiving text messages every day can be annoying. I know my service provider can send me useless text messages that are trying to sell me something and it can get bothersome. So what would be your idea for creating a smart phone that can fix this problem? For your second problem, privacy can be a social technical gap because the fact that there is no repository of saved information for your cell phone you may end up losing your information if your phone is destroyed.
ReplyDeleteThe memory and data storage point you bring up is interesting because actually at least one service provider that I know of (Verizon), now offers automatic syncing of your contact information with a central repository. The issue of privacy is certainly important, but it appears like some service providers have found ways to overcome these issues
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