Texture: Human Expression in the Age of Communications Overload

Citation

Note, M. (2011), "Texture: Human Expression in the Age of Communications Overload", Online Information Review, Vol. 35 No. 2, pp. 321-322. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684521111128122

Letters, phone calls, e‐mails, instant messages, text messages, blog posts, Facebook posts, Tumblr posts, RSS feeds, tweets: how much is enough? This question has become increasingly important in an environment of rapidly evolving digitally mediated communication. In Texture: Human Expression in the Age of Communications Overload, Richard Harper, Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research in Cambridge (UK), explores the paradox between our contemporary yen for communication and our complaints about its burdens as “we have wrapped ourselves up in a social universe of communicative obligation”. Defining communications overload as the “tipping point beyond which the balance between what is practical and what is excessive has been or is about to be reached”, he expounds:

[…] there is a conundrum to be explored that has to do with the tension between communications overload and the desire for communication, between the boredom that older technologies of communication induce and the fascination that exploring the properties of new ones cultivates, and the possibility that communications imposes on us to respond, to act, to answer the expressions of others.

Using examples from his work in academia and at Microsoft and Xerox, and drawing from the literature of social science, design, computer science, and related fields, Harper's argument is not that communications overload has been met; rather, it is to explore the texture of communicative practices, “a complex weave of bonds that tie together those that are communicating”, manifest in the “different ways we experience and exploit our communications technologies”. Exploring the sociological aspects of communicative practice, the author provides summaries of studies in communication behaviour and technologies, such as Whereabouts clocks and Glancephones, for work and home settings, mobile devices, and social networking sites, anchoring his examination in historical practice. Harper notes that current communication tools are “at once diverse, startling and subtle, and at the same time often similar to and driven by modalities of human bonding that have profound and long historical roots”. He contends that the goal of communication is not to be more efficient, but to enhance contemporary human expression by using different communications technologies to afford variegated ways of being in touch.

Texture: Human Expression in the Age of Communications Overload is recommended for those overwhelmed by the modes of communication in the twenty‐first century technological landscape. Harper asserts that beyond making us more productive and efficient, communication methods help us be more expressive, creative and reflective in our daily lives. By moving beyond being overcome by new channels of elucidation, our anxieties are set in context as the book investigates the raison d'être of communication in all its forms.