Is the future calm? Users and Calm Tech

The Morning
You wake to Slack alerts, emails, and apps reminding to use them today. TV’s are clicking on, Alexa is reminding of us our calendar. This is all before you had your coffee, you don’t even feel human yet.

Technology is growing, as is the expectation of our time and attention. Unfortunately, tech doesn’t care if we are having a bad morning, or even awake. We can set things to ‘do not disturb’, but should we be forced to turn a thousand apps to ‘dnd’ so we can get some sleep? So much is happening in the tech world it can be overwhelming, and now that our homes are tech-based, it can feel louder than ever. Our stoves text us dinner is cooked. Hair brushes let us know we didn’t comb our hair today. Then we go on Amazon to re-stock our paper towels and all we want is a smooth transaction with no hiccups. We don’t want any issues because our day has already been filled with noise from tech around us. It feels like tech is constantly pulling for our attention. Always telling us it is there. This never-ending greed for our attention is not infinite. But our attention is currency in the tech world, it is something that translates into indicators of success. Which means money. The technology sector must wake up and take this growing annoyance seriously. We must factor in how we affect people’s lives. Otherwise, we will see people abandon tech in droves and this has already begun.

We have reached the point where people are taking year-long sabbaticals, if not longer, from social media. More and more, people are turning off the phone when they get home. And let’s not forget that sleep scientists have advised us to turn away from all screens at least two hours before bed. But, there is a growing trend on the rise: the philosophy and practice of Calm Tech. The principles of which advise how tech should sit on the periphery of our lives. Calm Tech says technology should create a sense of calm in our lives, instead of a mad race to respond to all the buzzes and dings from our technology.

What is Calm Tech?
Calm Tech was first thought up in a paper at MIT way back in 1995. Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown focused on the idea that tech was becoming "noisy" to our lives as the internet was first emerging. These two saw the future overloaded by IoT, push notifications, and a general permanence in our lives. They theorized that tech could be on the edges of our lives for when we need it. Right now, it can seem like the reverse, where we are there for technology to use (here I am thinking of most Smart Phone games/apps, social media, etc.) Calm Tech wants us to rethink this integral relationship between tech and user.

In what is colloquially referred to as the Calm Tech bible, Amber Case details the tenants of Calm Tech. Perhaps the most crucial idea being that tech should inform and create calm, not pester us with noises and reminders. Followed up by the idea that tech can communicate, but doesn't need to speak. This is antithetical to modern life where everything speaks. Technology is racing for our full attention. Our lives are fully immersed in technology that eats up our time and attention. This relationship leaves users tired and apathetic at best, but cases of depression and worse have been reported.

Let’s look at something low-tech like the stove. The stove sits in most of the homes, unused until we need it to cook food. It doesn’t constantly ding to remind us ‘Hey, you haven’t used me in 4 hours, let's bake something.’ It is there on the periphery, ready for us to use it when we need to. Now, the simple fact is stoves are an integrated part of our lives. Stove sales are not hurting because all homes in the U.S., typically have one. This is the type of thinking we need to foster for technology.

We are in a new age of anxiety where technology is constantly speaking to us. Let’s say we make buy something from a site. But, mid-way through we drop out and not buy an item. There can be a deluge of emails reminding us we were interested in the said item. Emails asking us “Hey, are you sure you don’t want this thing?” For CEO’s and the tech sector, this seems like a novel idea. For users, this is another email to put in spam but you can’t tell your email to put all the emails from this store in there, after all, you want receipts and tracking when you do buy something. Now, one or two emails doesn’t sound too annoying but add in all the other reminders and notifications. This is like sitting in a room where a 100 radios are all playing different songs. Eventually, this all just becomes white noise in the background. The user is no longer paying attention to any of it.

Why is it important
This idea of Calm Tech is about calm integration into users lives. This should be a huge disruption to the tech-sector, like continental plate shifting. We are talking the re-thinking of tech strategy that focuses on users’ relationships to tech and vice versa. There must be a renewed focus on engagement with users that centers on user trust, user time management, and tech design. Now it is true that design thinking does cover some of this, but there is still a philosophy behind the business of tech that could use a re-tool. This is where Calm Tech comes in for CEO’s, startups, and entrepreneurs that are creating our tomorrow.

The simple fact is that Calm Tech is not greedy for attention. Instead, Calm Tech communicates from the periphery where a lot of a tech should. Let’s take a look at social media. Does anyone need Facebook front and center in our lives? Do we need an endless scroll for Instagram? The simple answer is no. Now, some of you will disagree. That is fine. If you enjoy having Facebook in front of you all the time, great. But we all should question what the cost is for our attention and time. After all, we only have a limited amount of "disk space" for attention a day. Not to mention we can only process so much anxiety. It's time we started putting that attention at a premium.

How does it relate to the user?
Technology is a non-judgmental partner in our lives. It doesn't ask us if we have "spent enough time online." Manufacturers like Apple have included additions to iPhones displaying time spent online. This isn't an answer. This "solution" does not address our relationship with technology. It says "You spent ‘x’ amount of hours on the internet.” Calm Technology says that "Tech should amplify the best of tech & best of humanity." Beeping and buzzing for us to pay attention doesn't do this. This is another thing that we have to be responsible for. Make sure you check in daily on Clash of Clans or the world could end and that sort.

What we are not talking about is the relationship this causes with users to tech. Having infinite scroll or constant notifications isn’t intuitive, it is explicit. It is a ham-fisted answer to needing people to use tech. This should make us all question the why of it. In some ways, we have turned tech into an annoying friend that is always going “Hey pay attention to me, hey pay attention to me” in multiple voices. An answer to peoples annoyance isn’t to say ‘well, our KPI is at risk, so we need users to interact with our app.” This is why Calm Tech is important. We as the entrepreneurs, designers, and tech creators must recognize the importance of relationships from user to tech. After all, we are creating the future, we should be deciding on more than just revenue and interaction. We must build relationships that shape the future for users.

What is the future?
The future seems poised to be full of speaking machines where even our toothbrushes, showers, toilets, and cars yammer on at us. Who wants to be nagged by every object around them? This is why the idea of Calm Tech vital. We don’t need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. We can keep technology on in our lives but in a significantly evolved way. This is Calm Tech. This is a future we can design that creates calm in users lives by communicating without always speaking.

We can make vibrant, salient technology that is a part of our everyday life without causing anxiety or being annoying. We need calm technology that helps shape the future. We need to create more tech like the stove. We need to have a vision of tomorrow that is not full of noise and money, but one of calm and interaction. Because calm is sustainable and our future should be too.

Future tech is a subject you can find covered in various details on our site at www.getchipbot.com. We will be covering everything pertaining to tech start-ups and entrepreneurs. Also, we would love to hear from all of you. Feel free to speak to us in the comments below.