If The Internet Was A Place

The difference between schools and libraries

From John Taylor Gatto’s The Underground History of American Education (via Austin Kleon):

To begin with, libraries are usually comfortable, clean, and quiet. They are orderly places where you can actually read instead of just pretending to read.

For some reason libraries are never age-segregated, nor do

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in the last decade, technology has transformed from a tool that we use to a place where we live. If we’re setting out to change the character of technology in our lives, we’d be wise to learn from the character of places.

“We want to think of the internet as a physical place. It is not about making the virtual physical, but rather to argue that the virtual also exists physically.”

- Woon Tien Wei

The role of a successful place is to provide a catalytic context for missions.

Imagine if instead of approaching our computer as a cold, mechanical piece of metal and glass that receives inputs and delivers outputs, we saw it as a relationship with the emergent, ineffable internet mystic that we’re collectively creating.

How might we approach that device differently?

I’ve come to think of software applications as a form of digital architecture: some are places of concentration, others of collaboration, others clearly just for fun. Software’s emotional dimension is crucial: how it feels dictates how it’s used. (Architects hire environmental psychologists; tech companies hire user-experience researchers.)... See more