Category Archives: Gadgets and Technology

Tech jobs continue to congregate in particular metropolitan regions

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A new analysis looks at where tech jobs located between 2005 and 2017:

Researchers from the Brookings Institution and the Information Technology and Innovation Fund, a tech-industry-backed think tank, arrived at their conclusion by looking at a fairly narrow slice of jobs—13 industries that involve the highest rate of research and development spending and STEM degrees per worker. That includes much of the software industry, as well as jobs in areas like pharmaceuticals and aerospace. The researchers found that, between 2005 and 2017, five metro areas—San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego, and Boston— not only added lots of jobs, they were also becoming more dominant in those industries overall.

TechJobsWired2005to2017

In part, that’s due to changes in what businesses need, says Enrico Moretti, an economist at UC Berkeley who wasn’t involved in the study. The enduring dominance of some tech hubs is somewhat counterintuitive. Technology was supposed to be a democratizing force—the internet and iPhone would make it possible to do innovative work from just about anywhere. But instead, high-tech industries became about proximity to your fellow high-tech workers. Businesses clustered around hubs of investment, in places where skilled workers could stick around after school, hop between jobs, and stay in touch with contacts. That plays out on an individual level too, Moretti says. In recent research tracking the patent activity of scientists as they moved in and out of places like the Bay Area, Moretti found that they were far more productive in those innovative hubs…

The researchers’ point is that it’s hard to build hubs of innovation from scratch—in places where the economy is really struggling, and where there’s little existing tech talent. Instead, you want to start with places that are already buzzing, and through a mix of investment—in things like R&D, education fellowships, and financing for small businesses—and tax incentives to encourage new business, nudge them to become innovation hubs. In other words, those places are already fertile ground for high-tech companies, but they need a little more fertilizer to get there. The researchers prefer federal investment to local subsidies that try to attract individual businesses—an often fruitless effort for smaller communities, as incidents like the downsized Foxconn factory in Wisconsin and Amazon’s HQ2 search demonstrate.

How exactly these centers of industry arise, thrive, and consolidate (and then maybe fade away or die?) is a good subject of academic study. Through a series of decisions, conditions, and good circumstances, agglomerations start. Inertia can carry them for a long time. As noted in the last paragraph, it can be difficult to introduce competition from other centers or create new centers once the main locations are well-established. Tech center do not just happen; they are the result of multiple social processes, interactions, and decisions.

Additionally, it is interesting to see that there is still a lot of value of actual physical locations near other businesses or organizations – even in a field that can render spatial and time distances less relevant. Being close to other people, being able to actually stop by or talk to them, still matters. All of this can add up to a location with a collection of similar organizations being more than the sum of its parts.

Yea! The Internet enables American workers to work more

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A working paper links the number of hours American white-collar employees put in and the Internet:

In a new working paper, the economists Edward E. Leamer, of UCLA, and J. Rodrigo Fuentes, of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, studied data about working hours from the American Community Survey. They found that hours worked since 1980 increased nearly 10 percent for Americans with bachelor’s and advanced degrees. Leamer told me that he believes this is because computing has shifted much of the economy from manufacturing to neurofacturing, Leamer’s term for intellectually intensive white-collar labor that is often connected to the internet, such as software programming, marketing, advertising, consulting, and publishing.

Neurofacturing jobs lend themselves to long hours for several reasons, Leamer said. They’re less physically arduous, as it’s easier to sit and type than to assemble engine parts. What’s more, the internet makes every hour of the day a potential working hour…

As Leamer and Fuentes write in the paper, “The innovations in personal computing and internet-based communications have allowed individual workers the freedom to choose weekly work hours well in excess of the usual 40.”

The internet has also supercharged global competition and forced international firms to outwork rivals many thousands of miles away. This has created a winner-take-all dynamic that’s trickled down to the workforce. In their 2006 study, “Why High Earners Work Longer Hours,” the economists Peter Kuhn and Fernando Lozano found that the premium paid for longer workweeks has increased since 1980 for educated workers, but not for less educated workers. Their theory is that at the most competitive firms, ambitious workers putting in super-long hours are sending a clear message to the boss: Promote me! And the boss isn’t just getting the message; he’s actively soliciting it. At many firms, insanely long hours are the skeleton key to the C-suite and the partner track. Thus, overwork becomes a kind of arms race among similarly talented workers, exacerbated by the ability to never stop working, even at home. It’s mutually assured exhaustion.

“Mutually assured exhaustion” is the result of zealous workers, managers asking more of employees, or the product of a unique work ethic in the United States?

This could lead to a basic question that I ask myself from time to time: has the Internet made life better? Is humanity thriving more, feeling better, doing more good, and experiencing a better life because of the Internet? The personal comparison is harder in that I was much younger when the Internet was not available but I can still imagine the comparisons. How might my academic work be different? My family life? My leisure time? And so on.

Additionally, the study also seems ripe for a comparison to other countries around the world that also have the Internet. Is the Internet the driver here or a tool that the American economic and social system utilizes to push a particular kind of work and approach to life? The Internet is not all powerful and cultural and social decisions in other societies seem to provide room for pushing against the possibility of working all day that the Internet allows.

Palaces for the People, Part 4: Facebook community versus physical community

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I recently read Eric Klinenberg’s 2018 book Palaces for the People. Today, I highlight the last of four passages from the book that make some interesting connections regarding physical places.

Returning to social media toward the end of the book and specifically discussing Facebook, Klinenberg suggests online interaction is not a good substitute for interaction in real space in real time:

But no matter how the site’s designers tweak Facebook content, the human connections we need to escape danger, establish trust, and rebuild society require recurrent social interaction in physical places, not pokes and likes with “friends” online. (212)

This is a regular theme in the book: social media interaction cannot match social interaction that takes place face-to-face in real places.

I would guess social media platforms will try really hard in the next few years to change their platforms to encourage more positive social interactions. Some users already work hard to avoid negative interactions. Facebook, for example, is pushing community groups more. Instagram is hiding likes. Twitter is allowing people to hide responses to their posts. Will this all work? Possibly. But, Klinenberg argues that all of these efforts can only go so far. Humans will still need physical places that encourage interaction, trust, and new ideas.

Imagine social media in ten years that is primarily made up of positive interactions. Perhaps then it will be criticized for largely hiding negative emotions or conflict. Perhaps it be dull in the way that endlessly cheery stories might be. Or perhaps it will be seen as a supplement to offline relationships rather than competition for them.

Another way to think about Klinenberg’s ideas: what do public spaces need to be in order to entice people away from social media? There are ingredients that make public spaces more interesting such as a regular flow of people, a variety of activity, a human scale, and perceived safety. Do we have enough of these to truly people people way from their smartphones and if not, how much work would it take to develop spaces like this all over the country?

Palaces for the People, Part 1: building relationships in physical proximity

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I recently read Eric Klinenberg’s 2018 book Palaces for the People. In the next few days, I will highlight a few short passages from the book that make some interesting connections regarding physical places.

In a discussion of relationships and social media in Chapter One, Klinenberg concludes:

Building real connections requires a shared physical environment – a social infrastructure. (41)

Research on social media tends to back this up: meaningful or lasting relationships on social media are often grounded in offline interactions and relationships. Social media may be particularly good at helping people maintain connections over time but many social media relationships have roots in or also take place offline. These deeper connections take place in particular settings. Physical spaces can help foster social interaction and togetherness.

This reminds me of Herbert Gans’ conclusions about the lives of teenagers in an early Levittown: there was nowhere for them to go. If there are not tangible physical spaces for young adults to gather (a role formerly played by the shopping mall), then the smartphone and social media look more attractive. Communities may struggle to find places for teenagers to go and be welcome – for example, even shopping malls did not necessarily want them – but the alternative may be worse.

Could AI ever replace diplomacy?

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A thought from watching the impeachment proceedings: the relationship between major countries hinges on the personal interactions of a relatively small set of people on each side. The interests of the United States, a global power with more than 327 million people, come down to personal interactions between diplomats. However deep the Deep State might be, a small set of relationships matter for all countries in how they get along with other countries.

In the world of the Internet and computers, does it seem feasible to replace person-to-person diplomacy with Artificial Intelligence? Two humorous examples suggest this could be very hard:

1. The diplomacy built in to the computer game Civilization that never seems to work that well.

2. The arduous negotiations that can occur in the board game Diplomacy over relatively simple moves.

But, imagine the possibilities. A much reduced diplomatic staff! Quicker negotiations! Being able to blame an algorithm for mistakes rather than people!

Ultimately, would governments trust artificial intelligence to put their diplomatic fate in its hands?

Collectively addressing traffic rather than individual drivers looking for the best route for them

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As Waze and other apps route drivers all over the place in order to find the shortest route, one writer argues we need to consider how traffic and congestion is a collective issue:

Road traffic is a great example: absent other incentives, I’m always going to choose the fastest route home that is available to me, even though taking a longer, more circuitous route would help spread out traffic and ease congestion for other drivers across my city. Traffic engineers have long assumed that the Nash equilibrium describes real-world rush hours pretty well.

In fact, mathematical studies and behavioral experiments dating back to the 1960s have shown that the collective delay is almost always worse in the Nash equilibrium, a.k.a. “user-optimized” driving scenario, compared to a world where drivers worked as a team for smoother traffic overall. Imagine a centralized transportation planner who assigned commuters their routes based on what was going to most benefit everybody. That god-like figure could impel some drivers to protract their journeys in order to improve the overall flow and decrease the cumulative time spent in traffic.

In this “system-optimized” equilibrium, our trips would be less harried on average: One widely cited 2001 paper by computer scientists at Cornell found that a network of “user-optimized” drivers can experience travel times equivalent to what a network of “system-optimized” drivers would experience with twice as many cars. Transport engineers call the difference between selfish and social equilibria the “price of anarchy.”

And the proposed solution:

Perhaps the best approach to the future of traffic starts with redefining the problem we’re trying to solve. For most of the 20th century, the principal concern of transportation economists was to reduce travel time across a given distance. But getting as many people as possible to and from work, school, and shopping—period—might be the more important task. If the goal is reframed as increasing access, rather than increasing speed, then the answer involves more than traffic apps and vehicle transponders. Land use patterns would have to be rethought so that people can live closer to the destinations they care about. People should be able to walk as much as they want to, and use bikes, scooters, buses, and trains. Autonomous vehicles, if they come, ought to be carefully folded into the mix with care so as not to double down on congestion and carbon emissions.

The solution hints that this is a much larger issue than apps and whether they should be held responsible by the public. The underlying issue may be this: are Americans generally willing to set aside their own personal priorities in favor of societal arrangements that can benefit more people on the whole?

Americans like to drive and it is baked into the American way of life. One of the reasons Americans like their own vehicles is that it offers independence and control. Rather than relying on a set schedule or having or riding with other people or supporting big systems, Americans like the idea that they can get into their vehicle at any time and go wherever they want. They may not actually do this much – hence, we get fairly predictable rush hours when everyone is trying to go places at the same time – but individual vehicles provide options in a way that mass transit does not.

Making the switch over to systems rather than individual options – including mass transit – requires submitting parts of life to a collective that cares less about individuals and more about the whole. This same debate is playing out in other arenas such as how healthcare should be organized or whether wealth inequality should be addressed. If the favored outcome is individual choice, it is hard to move people toward collective approaches. Even if thinking of traffic and transportation as a larger system means that more people might be stuck less in traffic, the individual participant may not gain that much or may lose the feel of control. Access for all is a hard sell when many like their individual choices (even as they bemoan congestion).

It might take decades or generations before a significant shift away from individual drivers might occur. Indeed, more than just apps can continue to promote individual approaches to driving: ride-sharing still is largely an individual act and the private nature of self-driving cars might just make the choice to drive even easier for some.

Resistance to 5G: technological progress versus local zoning and control

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Americans like local control and they like technological progress. So what will happen when municipalities refuse to install or significantly slow down the installation of 5G units the federal government has approved?

If someone is tracking all of these cases, it would be interesting to know how many communities are resisting this because of (1) alleged health threats or (2) resistance to being told that they must install these or (3) that some of these boxes are located near homes. Of course, it could be a combination of the three in some places but even then, I wonder what is the more convincing argument at (1) the local level and (2) at higher levels.

In the long run, I assume federal requirements would supersede local land use restrictions. But, what if there are scores of communities that resist? Or, what if the resisters are more powerful communities and residents? Infrastructure is a pretty important feature of modern society and allowing some communities to opt out may not be optimal. There is always some cynicism that wealthier communities can resist land use changes better because their resources allow them to challenge change. Would 5G installations then go in places that cannot as easily resist? Does this foreshadow a technological landscape where resources and ideology lead to more uneven distribution of basic technological infrastructure?

One possible compromise in many communities: ceding that the federal government has approved this but then refusing to install them in residential areas. I do not know how this would affect 5G coverage but I imagine moving the units out of sight of homes and residential units could do a lot of good.

Briefly considering the factors behind less successful social media platforms

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Social media may seem all powerful and present at this particular moment but it may be helpful to remember that numerous social media platforms did not succeed and for a variety of reasons:

By the New York Times’s and Abrams’s own account, though, hubris killed Friendster. A group of venture capitalists persuaded Abrams to turn down a $30 million offer from Google and then ran it into the ground with novel features rather than keeping the creaky site functioning smoothly. Pages just didn’t load…

In 2008, two years after reportedly surpassing Google as the most-visited website in the United States, Facebook eclipsed Myspace’s monthly user count. In 2011, when Myspace announced it was laying off half its staff, the New York Times attributed its decline to “fickle consumers and changing tastes”; a corporate “culture clash”; litter of celebrity promotion and pop-up ads; and Facebook’s standardized utilitarian interface–meaning that prefab profiles with names stylings like John Doe versus jdoe1234 were appealing to people. Forbes attributes Facebook’s generic design and its slow expansion through universities (with school email address verifications) and 13+ age policy to a perception that Facebook was a “safe space,” which would have incidentally coincided with a technopanic created by news reports of pedophilia. Social media scholar danah boyd performed an extensive study finding that racism also played a part, with upper-middle class white users deciding to wall off into exclusive groups…

The app for college students that quickly turned into a Black Mirror episode. Yik Yak, the anonymous messaging app designed by frat brothers Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington with campuses in mind, allowed users to broadcast posts within a five-mile radius without creating a username. It soon became a scourge on 1,600 schools, terrorized by Yik Yak-borne threats: bomb threats which led to multiple lockdowns and evacuations, a threat of a “Virginia Tech 2.0,” threats by white students to kill black students, threats to rape and “euthanize” feminist students, and general cruelty and mockery encouraging suicide. Several schools banned it, subpoenas and court orders were issued, federal complaints were filed against schools, and Yik Yak had to disable the app near high schools and middle schools altogether…

Over the next decade, Orkut never took off in the US but was huge in Brazil and India, at one point, claiming 27 million members to Facebook’s 4.2 million. Orkut ostensibly fulfilled the same basic needs, but observers/analysts/users attributed Facebook’s dominance to a number of factors: Facebook had more games, the feed, the like button or notifications, a more “professional” look, mutual friends , and cultivated a following of international students and “professionals” who brought Facebook back to India.

These explanations have a tinge of post-hoc analysis made easier by comparisons to which platforms did succeed. But, a full explanation of what leads to success for some platforms and not others likely gets complicated by a variety of factors:

  1. Timing. When is the platform introduced, how much of a user base does it attract and at what speed, and how does it compare at the time to other options?
  2. Particular features offered.
  3. The user experience/interface.
  4. Organizational skills. Could the company effectively move forward or did it keep making problems for itself?
  5. Financial backing.
  6. Appeal to a narrower or broader audience.

That Facebook is viewed as a success does not necessarily mean that it had all the appealing features or a certain genius at its helm or simply arrived at the right time and in the right place. How fields develop like this is complex and littered with winners and losers, some more responsible for their own fate and others more influenced by the social forces around them. And developing the full story will likely take time as we assess how today’s winners fare and how social media itself as a form of technology evolves.

Utilizing productivity software to schedule family life

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Organize your family with Slack, Google Calendar, and Trello (among other options):

Asana said it doesn’t collect data on the various “personal-use cases” its software is put toward. But Joshua Zerkel, the company’s head of global community, says that in talking with people about how they use the product, he hears many say it comes in handy for nonbusiness purposes, such as planning a wedding or a move. When asked how Asana might be designed differently if it were intended for personal use, he said, “I don’t know that that much would actually change.”

“We think of Trello as a tool you can use across work and life,” says Stella Garber, the company’s head of marketing. “The example we had on our homepage for a long time was a kitchen remodel. On our mobile app the example was a Hawaiian vacation. We know humans have a lot of things they need organized, not just what they have at work.” (Slack declined to share any information about how people use its software, and Atlassian, which owns Jira, did not respond to a similar request.)…

Mazmanian says that these programs might be of particular value to households with two working parents, an arrangement that more children grow up with now, compared with a few decades ago. Without one adult in charge of the professional domain and one in charge of the domestic domain, there’s more coordination of who’s in charge of what—which is something productivity tools can assist with.

Perhaps the desire to streamline home life is also a product of how much employers ask of today’s knowledge workers. “I see the use of business software within households as an effort to cope with feeling too stretched at work,” says Erin Kelly, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and a co-author of the forthcoming book Overload: How Good Jobs Went Bad and What We Can Do About It. She says that the “escalating demands” of many white-collar jobs leave workers (parents or not) increasingly frazzled and worn out—so the same tools that systematize their workdays might appeal as a way to cut down on the time they spend organizing life at home.

There are lots of potential trends converging here including changing labor conditions, changing family life, the rise of productivity software, and the ubiquity of smartphones.

On one hand, this does not seem like a problem at all. Humans have a tendency to use all sorts of mediums in distributed cognition where we can offload our individual responsibility to a helping device or person. Think of making a shopping list: instead of having to spend the energy memorizing a list in our own mind, we write down the items on a piece of paper that we can then trust to have a record of what we were thinking. This new software takes advantage of new efficiencies and new devices to do something humans are used to doing.

On the other hand, the article suggests this software could harm authentic or idealized family life by turning it more into a business or organization rather than a loving group. What happens when partners or parents and children primarily communicate through this software? What if family life only becomes a set of tasks to accomplish (with helpful or annoying reminders along the way)? Where does the blending of work and home life end?

I am surprised by two omissions in this article:

-The amount of experience children in school have with such software that schools and teachers may use to help organize homework, projects, and online learning.

-The lack of specific software/apps aimed at families that could cater more to some of the concerns expressed or provide features kids and parents like.

Watching TV to see people use Zillow

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In watching a recent episode of House Hunters on HGTV, I was treated to brief scenes of the couple using Zillow:

HGTVZillow

Caveats:

-I know this is how people shop for houses today. I have done it myself.

-I would guess this means HGTV and Zillow are working together on the show in some capacity. (See a similar clip on ispotTV.)

-House Hunters tries (!) to show what looking at houses might look like.

Commentary:

Even though the scene was brief, I found it odd. It either seemed like obvious product placement (use Zillow rather than Redfin or MLS or other options!), uninteresting storytelling (watch people look at a screen!), or signaled some major change. As the couple then moved to driving around by themselves and looking at houses, I thought for a short moment that they would not even need a realtor: they had found listings online, arranged their own details, and would tour on their own. (Alas, the realtor just met them at the first house tour.)

While there is a lot of potential for HGTV and other similar programming to incorporate devices and screens (mainly smartphones and tablets) into their portrayals of finding property, there is a bigger issue at play for television and film: how can you interestingly portray handheld screens that so many of us are buried in on a daily basis within a story that has to move at a rapid pace? This is not easy.