Great essay. This guy nails it, although I think his scholarly approach misses some key ramifications. (I'm also not sure I like "content collapse", since there's nothing unusual happening here, just everything all at once, but that's a fight for another day)
I've been kicking around this problem since 2009 and I keep getting back to different physical devices for different social contexts. It's not just that the contexts are different; it's that we need to use our bodies to show ourselves and others that we are moving into some different context. Otherwise the "programming" doesn't work.
The fundamental error here is thinking that all human communication can collapse to data. That's wrong in a ton of ways, but the idea has a helluva powerful following among us nerd.
I think you are right about distinct devices. I use a phone and computers owned by my employer for professional activities, and a different phone and personally owned computers for my private interests. There is, of course, uncomfortable bleeding between the two, e.g., health insurance e-mails going to my empolyee account that gets forwarded to my private e-mail account. Just part of the insanity of employer based health care.
I've been kicking around this problem since 2009 and I keep getting back to different physical devices for different social contexts. It's not just that the contexts are different; it's that we need to use our bodies to show ourselves and others that we are moving into some different context. Otherwise the "programming" doesn't work.
The fundamental error here is thinking that all human communication can collapse to data. That's wrong in a ton of ways, but the idea has a helluva powerful following among us nerd.
Cool stuff. Thanks.