Skip to main content

Douglas Rushkoff's Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age

I recently read Douglas Rushkoff's 2010 book, Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age. I first heard of the book at a panel at this year's Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA) national conference - one of the presenters mentioned that she used this book for an "Intro to Critical Thinking" course she teaches to college freshmen. It's an interesting choice for that purpose, because Rushkoff isn't so much arguing in this book that people should take on a particularly critical perspective when interacting with the media of a digital age. Instead he's arguing that we should concern ourselves with understanding the way it all works, and that effort to understand will itself engender a critical perspective.

Rushkoff uses the term "program" in a very literal sense - his ideal 21st century citizen would absolutely know how to program, and actually, he says, it's not that hard and anyone can learn how. But right from the beginning of the book he clarifies that, though we could get by without knowing how to program, we do at least "have to learn that programming exists" because these "websites and social networks where we do our work and play...are not nature. They have been constructed by people (or at least for people) with real agendas... Understanding programming - either as a real programmer or even, as I'm suggesting, as more of a critical thinker - is the only way to truly know what's going on in a digital environment, and to make willful choices about the roles we play" (pg. 4). So the basic understanding of programmed infrastructure is an inherently critical perspective - to make the effort required to understand how the tools we use actually work is a political action that naturally lets us get underneath the surface of the things presented to us for our ease of use. The real danger is if we "remain unaware of the biases of the programs in which we are participating, as well as the ways they circumscribe our newfound authorship within their predetermined agendas" (pg. 146).

Rushkoff predicts we're not all going to become programmers, but what he reveals in this slim book are the ways in which the technologies of the digital age are biased towards certain things, and it's those biases that so profoundly influence our lives and are therefore essential for us to understand. For example, Rushkoff's first command is "Do Not Be Always On:" "because computer code is biased away from continuous time, so too are the programs built on it, and the human behaviors those programs encourage" (pg. 31). When we as users do develop the impulse to respond to emails and texts immediately, this leaves us feeling manic and uncomfortably chained, in part because that's not how these technologies were meant to be used. "...[C]omputers operate decision to decision, choice to choice... The time between those commands can be days, or a millisecond" (pg. 30-31). When we chase after "the false goal of immediacy...the results aren't pretty. Instead of becoming empowered and aware, we become frazzled and exhausted. We have no time to make considered responses, feeling instead obligated to reply to every incoming message on impulse" (pg. 35). When we ignore the way things work, we become chained to practices that were never intended and don't add benefit to our lives. We are, in short, not using these tools to the best of their abilities and therefore we are not fully competent digital citizens.

A few of Rushkoff's commands are particularly important for those in education to keep in mind as we educate 21st century student-citizens. His command that we "Live in Person" is important for young people (and not-so-young people!) learning how their digital and in person social lives interact. Rushkoff makes the point that "the bias of the networks were absolutely intended to favor decentralized activity" (pg. 43). He wonders at the fact that "...we begin to use long-distance technologies by default, even in local situations where face-to-face contact would be easier" (pg. 49). Rushkoff asks, "...for students and a school who have already spent the time, money, and energy to get to a real classroom at a real college, why throw all that away for video game version of engagement?" (pg. 49). It's a good question as more schools (some more thoughtfully than others) look to integrate technologies and software in order to take over or enhance some of the teaching process. Even I as a learning technology enthusiast pause over this command and realize anew that we must always be thoughtful about what that technology-based learning is replacing, and if it in fact needs to be replaced.

Another important point particularly for educators is the bias that digital technologies have towards abstraction: "On the net, everything is occurring on the same abstracted and universal level. Survival in a purely digital realm...means being able to scale, and winning means being able to move up one level of abstraction beyond everyone else" (pg. 74). How familiar this sounds, coming from the world of nonprofits - everything is about "scaling up," reaching as much of the market as possible, becoming oversimplified and generic enough so that you can become "all things to some people, or some things to all people" (pg. 75). This can get dangerous when we begin to lose "the ability and desire to tell the difference between the spectacle and real world" (pg. 81). (Rushkoff uses the example of a reproduced image of a piece of art vs. the artwork hanging in a museum itself.) It's dangerous for culture and public life if young people are unable to get themselves out of a spiral of abstraction. But lo, Rushkoff gives us a way out: "By recognizing the abstracting bias of digital technologies...we can use it to our advantage...our digital abstractions work best when they are used to give us insight into something quite real and particular" (pg. 82). If educators can give students the tools to not only recognize this abstracting bias but to also use that bias to our advantage to achieve deeper understanding and meaning, then we can transform young people into critical users, not just passive ones, of digital technologies.

Ultimately Rushkoff argues that digital technology users need to be not only informed consumers but empowered through technical understanding in order to truly participate in the evolution of this technology. And being involved in this evolution is important because, he warns, "If we don't learn to program, we risk being programmed ourselves" (pg. 139). Rushkoff writes, "We do not teach programming in most public schools. Instead of teaching programming, most schools with computer literacy curricula teach programs. Kids learn how to use popular spreadsheet, word processing, and browsing software so that they can operate effectively in the high-tech workplace. The basic skills may make them more employable for the entry-level cubicle jobs of today, but they will not help them adapt to the technologies of tomorrow. Their bigger problem is that their entire orientation to computing will be the perspective of users" (pg. 135-136). This is an issue because of Rushkoff's final command: "Program or Be Programmed. Digital technology is programmed. This makes it biased toward those with the capacity to write the code" (pg. 134). This isn't some esoteric thought experiment to Rushkoff: this has very real implications for everyone who interacts in a digital world. Which means everyone, especially the young people in our classrooms who will be tasked with reimagining and improving our (digital) worlds.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

New Literacies Scholar: Spotlight on Elizabeth Birr Moje

Image source: U-M SOE faculty page Dr. Elizabeth Birr Moje is a professor of Literacy, Language and Culture in the Educational Studies Department of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Moje started her career as a high school teacher of history, biology, and drama, and now focuses much of her research in Detroit schools, in predominantly Latinx communities. This multidisciplinary background has certainly influenced Moje’s research, as she focuses her work on content-area, or disciplinary, literacies. She argues that students should be trained to think like experts in the discipline, because “each discipline has its own literacy and...by stripping away the one-size-fits-all literacy ‘strategies’ and engaging students in the way historians and scientists actually read and write, literacy learning will be central, no longer a side dish” (Peterson, no page number). Moje observes that a move towards disciplinary literacy -- and away from textbooks -- is more authentic and more enga

Why SHOULD you care about digital security?

As a middle school digital literacy teacher, one of the toughest topics to unpack is online surveillance. When we start discussing the Patriot Act and the use of cell-site simulators by some local law enforcement agencies , for example, I worry that students walk away from class feeling frightened, with vague notions that “the government” is “watching” them. While I don’t want to sow the seeds of paranoia, the fact is that government agencies (and corporations, and hackers) really are watching what users do online, and I want my students to know about it. So together we build understanding of what governmental and corporate surveillance looks like, who sponsors it, and the motivations for this surveillance. We also look at how protections from surveillance differ around the world.  But inevitably comes that comment. You know the one. We’ve all heard it: from friends, coworkers, family members.   “Well, I don’t care. I’m not doing anything wrong so I have nothing to hide.”  Enter

Online Reading Comprehension: Digital or New Literacy(ies)?

LABELING AND DEFINING LITERACY IN 2019 Like so much in the world of education, there are many terms for overlapping concepts. Digital literacy vs. digital literacies vs. new literacies vs. online reading comprehension vs. digital inquiry is just such a situation. To my mind, all speak to the skills, dispositions, and behaviors needed for full engagement in the 21st century. So why all the labels? On the one hand, many terms for the same concept has a balkanizing effect: efforts become fragmented and progress might stall in the face of ongoing parallel initiatives. I see this also as I get exposed to new networks of people working within parallel and sometimes intersecting professional communities. The connected learning network vs. the digital pedagogy network vs. the media literacy network vs. the digital literacy network vs. even to a smaller but certain degree the OER network and the digital humanities network. There are certainly differences in goals, styles, and membership, but