Cultural Influences in Computing Technologies?

Jose Rojas asks: "I'd like to request the help of the international Slashdot community to help me address the following issues. I'm starting my PhD in computing science and I'm interested in understanding how computing technologies are shaped by the cultural environment where they are originally created. It is my hypothesis that computing technologies we use today are the result of an initial idea that essentially defines how a technology (i.e., a software application) will be used afterwards. Being the product of an initial idea, this technology is the tangible outcome of the mind of its creator. While I recognize that a prototype is subsequently shaped by social, commercial, cultural, and other various forces that popularize it, my position is that the computing technologies we use today are, essentially, the embodiment of the particular idiosyncrasies (beliefs, ideals, goals, or aims) of their original creators. Furthermore, since the personal computer and other computing technologies are said to be the product of the Western world, it is quite reasonable to suppose that computing technologies embody a Western view of the world, that is, Western ideals as to why they exist, what are their purposes, and what problems (if any) are they supposed to solve, but what are those philosophies, ideals, and purposes of computing technologies embodied in Western-produced computing technology?" "As computing technologies continue penetrating all over the world, and as other countries are empowered to develop native computing technologies, do computing technologies developed in non-Western countries originate from and embody essentially different philosophies, ideals, and overall purposes of technology? Do they address different needs? What are some examples of these computing technologies that originate from different needs, ideals, philosophies, and/or cultural environments? Are the characteristics of non-Western computing technologies transferable, or are they intrinsically bounded to the originating culture? Are there any lessons to learn from non-Western views of technology? And finally, are computing technologies developed in non-Western countries limited by the "Western" nature of the computer?

I will welcome any opinion, suggestion, advice, link, and any other resource the Slashdot community can point me to. Please, feel free to contribute and engage in this discussion."

Comments

The user as "consumer".

[Myself]

I think the largest shift we've seen isn't cultural so much as commercial. When computers were a hobby in and of themselves, the user was given some credit: Manuals included schematics, and everything was meant to be programmed by the end user.

As the computer has shifted to become another TV, users are turned back into viewers, and there's no incentive to make the innards accessible. It's only by history that we have the degree of control that we do!

I wonder how a culture with no concept of "marketing" would use the tools we now have available to us.

You are takling UI and tasks here....

[gweihir]

The algorithmic side has very little or no cultural bias at all, since it is Mathematics and there are only so many ways to do a certain thing. The user interface, and more important, what computers are used for is what I think you should concentrate on. Also, are there cultural differences in dealing with computers?

Diminishing Returns

[pipingguy]

I don't see much groundbreaking innovation for personal computers/software in the western world much past 2010. After a certain point, 95% of all applications are "good enough" and further upgrades will tend to be less and less important and practical for the average buyer. Affordable 3D graphics (not for gaming, I mean) is one area where we might see improvements and additional interest though.

After all, software and computers are just an enabler to accomplish greater things, they do not do much all by themselves. One example I like is (non-software) engineering: if CAD, FEA and other computer-dependant fields magically went away tomorrow, would we, as a society worldwide, still be able to build things? Of course we would.

The creation of a software-reliant workforce is nice in the sense that you have a theoretically mobile workforce that is easily able to transfer (computer) skills to another field of work and thus cushion the impact of economic change. However, this tends to lead to button-pushers that see things only as the machine presents it.

I've seen computing in 3 cultures

[mrjb]

Disclaimer: These are wildly subjective.

In Indonesia, computing culture has been shaped pretty much by software piracy. It's fairly hard to make a living on writing commercial (read: mass-produced) software as you will find your work copied and spread around from the moment you sell your first copy. Protecting your software other than by law is vital, as the copyright law isn't properly enforced.

Also, with the average salaries there, some people might even be able to afford a computer (which will cost several months of salary), but no longer will have the means to pay for software. Back then, I even found myself using pirated software, not because I didn't *want* to use legal software but simply because legal software or even proper books weren't available. Mind you, this was before Linus wrote his famous Usenet post. As a result, it was terribly hard to find decent programmers in that area. Limitations in budget made it necessary to come up with creative, effective solutions. Only large companies and multinationals can afford custom-made software, as it is perceived as very expensive (even though programming services are hard to come by). Overall the culture doesn't support traditional software development, although the GNU movement has a good chance to work in such a setting.

In Portugal, things are different. Frankly I think they are a bit behind in their computer science education. Universities there still teach COBOL, the horror. Corporate culture values hierarchy quite a bit- Things are sometimes done in a certain way 'because I say so' even if a better solution exists. Programmers are treated as 'resources' or 'factory workers'- if you want more productivity, push them harder (instead of finding a way to work more efficiently). If things don't work out as planned, it is always the programmer who is to blame, because upper management never makes mistakes. Needless to say, this goes against modern insights. Possibly this still has its roots in the dictatorship that used to reign the country.

In Holland, up-to-date, proper education is no issue. The attitude is one of professionalism and open discussion. The upside of this is that if there is a problem, it will be clear where the source of the problem lies. The downside is that time may be wasted in meetings. Overall the culture helps support software development.

In most countries I've seen, most of the people that call themselves 'programmer' have never received any formal education. Then again, this also goes for management. Depending on the country, there may be a smaller or bigger notion of what is 'the right way' to do things, but in many cases this is disregarded anyway.

So, I would say culture definitely has a large impact on computing.

Cultural influences and computing

[ThufirHawat]

José, Western doesn't mean much.
You probably have to take a look first at cultural theorists,as e.g. Geert Hofstede (google for him).
Once got yourself familiar with his formal theory, then you might look at other issues.
In a paper I published in 1998, I wrote:
"Conversation is, in the United States, based on utterances which are always non overlapping. Therefore the dialogue between SMTP servers is structured so that each takes its turn before acknowledging or replying to the other server.
Had this been designed by an Italian, coming from a culture where instead a conversation is nearly invariably overlapping, then the exchange between SMTP servers would probably be multi-threaded, with the possibility to pass back and forth simultaneously a certain number of messages."
This might indeed be a trivial example, but perhaps it is what you might be looking for.

The WIMP metaphor as the FHB metaphor

[CandyMan]

A friend of mine told me that in a city in India someone put a computer with a touch screen in a street corner in a poor neighbourhood, where the street boys could play with it. They learnt to do things very quickly, and they started giving names to what they saw. "Windows" were "Fields", and "Icons" were "Houses". The "Pointer" was a "Bird"... I wonder what would come of Interface design in the hands and minds of people with totally different cultural constraints.

I don't know anything more: the story sounds half-apocryphal to mee, and I apologise for its vagueness, but I still think it is relevant.