"Press me! The buttons that lie to you"
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Does it help to push the buttons on pedestrian crossings, train doors and thermostats?"
The tube pulls in to a busy station along the London Underground’s Central Line. It is early evening on a Thursday. A gaggle of commuters assembles inside and outside the train, waiting for the doors to open. A moment of impatience grips one man who is nearest to them. He pushes the square, green-rimmed button which says “open”. A second later, the doors satisfyingly part. The crowds mingle, jostling on and off the train, and their journeys continue. Yet whether or not the traveller knew it, his finger had no effect on the mechanism.
Some would call this a “placebo button”– a button which, objectively speaking, provides no control over a system, but which to the user at least is psychologically fulfilling to push. It turns out that there are plentiful examples of buttons which do nothing and indeed other technologies which are purposefully designed to deceive us. But here’s the really surprising thing. Many increasingly argue that we actually benefit from the illusion that we are in control of something – even when, from the observer’s point of view, we’re not. (read more)
9 comments:
buttons buttons everywhere a button.
@Lem: Empujar and halar are basic impulses of society.
You can avoid this problem by jaywalking.
In 2008, economies around the world were rocked by the failure of several financial institutions culminating in the catastrophic financial crisis. Did an illusion of control pervade at banks where the haphazard dealing of subprime mortgages went on? Fenton-O’Creevy thinks it’s likely.
“This wasn’t rocket science. Most banks have a very strong understanding of the relationship between risk and return. So if you find yourself making a very high return in a market, the obvious question is, ‘if we’re making unusually high levels of return what are the risks we’re taking?’ It’s very obvious people weren’t asking those sorts of questions,” he says.
Putting people like Obama in office reaped enormous emotional rewards and there again t was done w/o hardly anybody asking "what are the risks we’re taking?"
Did I just linked the election of Obama to the subprime mortgage collapse?
and all I did was push some keys.
O-press-me! the button that lied to you.
I sort of suspected that the cross-walk buttons did nothing but I always always press them because I'm paranoid that maybe they *do* do something and if I don't press them the little "walking man" will never light up when the lights change.
I never thought they made the lights change sooner... only that maybe they kept the light your direction on a little longer so you had time to walk all the way across.
AllenS said...
You can avoid this problem by jaywalking.
Jaywalking isn't even a legitimate crime. It's such a bullshit offense.
Metaphor alert. Here you go, little person, something to do while we in our good time decide whether to let go on your way.
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