(Perceived) control – do digital technologies enhance our sense of control in everyday life?
McQuay, P. Weather Comic.
Have you ever wondered why you check the weather every day before you leave the house? Why you use step-counting apps? How many to-do lists do you currently have, with tasks pending endlessly, from one week to the next?
There are multiple reasons - wanting to be productive, to use your time wisely or to the fullest extent, to be fit, look good, or to not catch a cold. But have you considered what lies beneath all of these reasons?
It’s likely to be that most basic desire of all - the need to be in control.
Decades of psychology research and observing the human mind tell us that “individuals exercise control over the environment by making choices” (1). It appears that we simply have a tendency to long for choice and this is even further encouraged by the possibilities of the technology available today.
As suggested in the paper ‘Born to Choose: The Origins and Value of the Need for Control’, the perception that one is “in control over the environment and able to produce desired results is essential for an individual’s general well being”, therefore control is not only preferred, but somewhat essential for survival. Any tools which have the potential to enhance our perception of command in any aspect of life are likely to be favoured, putting mobile phones at the forefront of control-enhancing gadgets. Robinson and Lachman, researchers on control and ageing, state that: “perceived control is positively associated with a multitude of important outcomes related to health and well-being” (2) and “has been found to exert positive influence on pleasure, mood and involvement (3). Technology presents various opportunities to achieve this type of control, even if it is just a perception.
There are two things we know about control, however, from a fairly young age. The first is that sometimes it is impossible to maintain, and that some aspects of life simply cannot be manipulated, (although this does not stop us from trying!). Second and closely related, is knowing the difference between having genuine control and being blessed with the illusion of it. The common factor for both of these is choice: “opportunities for choice have been shown to create the illusion of control” (1) and it is this illusion that I’ll be discussing here in relation to technology.
Continuously developing technology provides us with genuine control over almost all areas of life: from health and transport; to shopping and time management. However, how often is this tangible empowerment and when is it just a feeling that may yield less real-life results? Let’s look at two examples of the ways in which technology provides us with a comfortable perception of control which, to an extent, will always remain illusory: online subscription services and mobile weather apps.
Subscribing to choice
Netflix is the largest video streaming service in the world, with content choices so numerous that if you wanted to watch everything available on Netflix and did so for 3 hours a day, it would take 31 years to watch it all. A paper by Gomez-Uribe and Hunt on the Netflix algorithms tells us that “Internet TV is about choice: what to watch, when to watch, and where to watch, compared with linear broadcast and cable systems that offer whatever is now playing on perhaps 10 to 20 favorite channels” (4). It’s safe to say - Netflix’s selling point is ease of use, and most importantly, choice.
With such a staggering number of options, doesn’t it seem that we are truly in control of our entertainment choices? In comparison to the number of hours of films, programmes and documentaries produced in over 100 years, this is a drop in the cinematic ocean. Given Netflix’s increasingly production-led role in releasing original films and its rivalry with the cinematic experience, a portion of those 34,000 hours of available content was actually produced by Netflix in the last few years, while foreign-language and older productions still remain a minority. We consume what we are given, and the choice we are provided with goes only as far as the service allows it to.
It has to be said that Netflix are keenly aware of the effect of too much choice and its paralysing effects on our ability to choose. For this reason, there exists a number of handy algorithms which aid us in decision-making, working together to form the Netflix Recommender System. It helps us to navigate the already enormous database of content and proposes suggestions we may like based on our previously liked shows, duration of watching, search patterns and many more elements which make up the increasingly accurate Recommender. Yet, although useful, don’t the algorithms limit our choice, and therefore control over what we see, even further? We may avoid choice fatigue, but the more we use the service, the harder it will be to escape the box of preferences that we’re put in by behind-the-scenes technology, and the control we feel over our entertainment choices may slip away even further.
Controlling nature
Moving on to feeling like we’re on top of more than just our leisure choices, mobile weather applications are a surprisingly popular category in mobile app stores - in 2018 there were over 10,000 apps with the word ‘weather’ in the name. In his book ‘The Weather Obsession’, Lawrie Zion tells us that “In Britain (...) the majority of two thousand adults surveyed by the Met Office reported that they checked the weather either within an hour of getting up or before leaving the house in the morning” (5). So, why are we so obsessed with knowing whether or not it will rain?
Of course, weather is essential to human activity and species survival, from escaping hurricanes to good harvests, so controlling it has always been a collective dream. “There is widespread appreciation for the fact that the value of weather, climate, and environmental data, information, and forecasts is growing in importance to the U.S. economy” (6) which, of course, applies to the rest of the world too. If the stakes are so high and total control is impossible, perhaps predicting it gives us a glimpse of the command we so desire.
Weather forecasts have been a regular feature of media for decades, but it is not until the smartphone revolution that hourly forecasts, changing in real time are available every second of every day. Not more than 80% accurate, weather apps never actually promise anything, yet in the western world, they not only allow us to plan our busy days (and outfits) a little more carefully - they also bring us a little closer to the unpredictable, untrimmed nature we’re so far removed from, particularly in urban spaces. The ability to closely track the forecast as it unravels means that while we cannot actually control what the weather will do, we can prepare for it, and thus feel that little bit more in control of its effects.
Conclusion
Perceived control is is absolutely necessary for survival, if we are not to fall into a depressive state of helplessness. The internet and its tools provide seemingly unlimited choice, and as we know, being able to choose equals a sense of control. It is probably impossible to tell exactly to what extent our desire for it plays a part in how modern technology operates but one thing is for sure - the available tools provide plenty of opportunities to enhance the perception that we have full command over the most minor elements of living. Even if the choice is limited, it is perhaps the best way to ensure we will be back for more.
References
1) Leotti L .A., Iyengar S. S, Ochsner K. A (2010) Born to Choose: The Origins and Value of the Need for Control. Trends Cogn Sci Available online.
2) Robinson. S.A., Lachman, M.E (2018) Perceived Control and Aging: A Mini Review and Directions for Future Research. Gerontology. Available Online.
3) Hui M. K., & Bateson J. E. G, (1991) Perceived Control and the Effects of Crowding and Consumer Choice on the Service Experience. Journal of Consumer Research. Available online.
4) Gomez-Uribe.C.A, Hunt, N (2015) The Netflix Recommender System: Algorithms, Business Value, and Innovation. ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems. Available online.
5) Zion L (2017) The Weather Obsession by Lawrie Zion. Melbourne University Press Digital.
6) Chapter: 3. The Impact of Weather and Climate on Society and a Vision for the Future, Colgan and Weiher. In: Satellite Observations of the Earth's Environment: Accelerating the Transition of Research to Operations (2003) The National Academies Press.
