I’m reading a passage from McCarthy and Wright’s Technology as Experience and this quote stuck out to me:
“…the tools for text messaging would win no prizes for usability, yet text messaging is experienced by many adults and teenagers as instrumentally and expressively useful (Katz and Aakhus 2002).”
This book is from 2004 and text messaging has improved vastly with the event of smartphones, but the sentiment behind the statement nonetheless reminded me of a show I’ve seen recently.
This weekend, I started watching House of Cards on Netflix (really great show, by the way). One thing that I’ve found particularly interesting is the show’s treatment of text messaging as part of everyday life. There are actually little pop-up windows on the screen itself showing someone’s text message. Here’s a screenshot:
In this screenshot, the man receiving the text is actually also on a conference call for work. So there are two threads going on at once, both the text conversation and the audible business conversation.
This method of showing text-based conversations on-screen might have been used elsewhere before, but this is the first time I’ve seen it, so I thought it was particularly interesting. I think House of Cards was just released a week or so ago, so to me it’s really showing the sociocultural context of text messaging–particularly the idea of texting while trying to do something else (via CSCW in fact) and multitasking as a part of our everyday lives.
I’m really interested to see if this becomes a convention in film for showing text message conversations.
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February 4, 2013 at 4:41 pm
meredithelzea
The technique you pointed out reminds me of the product description scene in Fight Club. Edward Norton talks about his obsessive shopping behavior and during this monologue, product descriptions pop up next to the actual product in his apartment (here’s a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN8vyO8ILD8). These descriptions are basically pulled out of the catalog showing that his apartment is like the model home for IKEA or something similar. I think this overlaying technique adds something to the scene – maybe to our understanding of the characters first person interactions.
February 5, 2013 at 12:34 am
schicks
House of Cards (henceforth referred to as HoC) could be a study in itself as to how the use of technology in film or television offers insight into the broader sociocultural context of the story. HoC is not the first show to use this technique – BBC’s Sherlock employed something similar, using an overlay to provide the audience with a glimpse of text messages or other information that would normally only be available to the character using the technology. An example can be seen towards the end of this clip:
Mobile technology in Sherlock actually progressed to play a central part in developing plot structure and creating dialogue between main characters. Entire episodes have evolved around computer hacking and cell phone use, with major events using this type of medium to add new levels of context beyond what’s on the screen. In fact, tv shows such as Sherlock and HoC could be considered more a “screen” than a “camera” – by that I mean the images we watch take on more of a HUD aesthetic, or something more similar to the technology we use in our daily lives. It could be a testament that the screens we sit in front of all day are no longer windows into a prerecorded static experience, but constantly change through our interactions. These shows are mimicking that type of interaction in the information they present.
HoC is also rather shameless in it’s attention to the specifics of tech brands. An iphone is clearly an iphone, a blackberry can be clearly seen as a blackberry, and MS Outlook is easily seen as the email device of choice. This is a departure from shows that attempt to “debrand” the technology, even if it’s clear that the laptop a character is using is clearly a macbook. I would argue that this makes for a more immersive and “real” experience. We’re constantly surrounded by these devices, each of which has associations to their particular manufacturer. My roommate even said while watching the show “It’s like she’s one of us”. The show is so clearly placed in our current reality that it’s almost addictive to watch the events unfold as though they might be happening a block away.
February 5, 2013 at 9:34 pm
schaplin22
That is pretty cool. I have never seen a text message in a show pop up on the screen like that before. I might’ve seen it shown on the physical phone that the person is holding in their hand but not how HoC showed it in the screenshot that you took. Could you tell me more about HoC, just a short detail of what it’s all about. The show looks interesting and there might be more findings that we can talk about!