verging_on_random

Mental models and computers

August 5, 2006 on 10:50 pm | In Uncategorized |

In some of the courses I teach we talk about ‘mental models’. These are the unconscious assumptions that we make about how institutions work. For example, when we go into a fancy restaurant we expect somebody to show us to our table, take our order and so on. If we went somewhere where they showed us to a table but then left us to go to the kitchen and tell the chef what we wanted to eat we’d probably become disoriented; certainly we’d lose confidence in our ability to predict actions and consequences.

Being confident that we understand how institutions work is important to our sense of self-efficacy, i.e. feeling secure that we have the knowledge, intelligence and resources to look after ourselves. Once people lose a sense of self-efficacy they experience feelings of alienation and even panic, because they no longer feel in control of their lives.

Unfortunately our mental models are often wrong. Sometimes this isn’t a problem; for example, committed christians (and muslims for that matter) have a mental model of human existence which I think is absurd but if it helps them cope then good luck to them. On a more mundane level, however, using a misconceived mental model leads to dysfunctional decisions. We can see one example in the contemptible ‘lets lock up more people for longer’ crap that politicians like to come out with, pandering to the widely held but discredited mental model that punishing people who break the law will deter others from doing it (like “I was going to rape you when I thought I’d only get 20 years but now I know I’ll get life I’ll go take a cold shower instead.” Yeah right.)

But I’m getting off the point which is not unusual. What I wanted to talk about was the mental model most of us still use when we think about computers. The subject came up in one of my classes a couple of weeks back when I was suggesting that classroom-based education was a dying institution, certainly for adults, and that within a few years virtually all tertiary education would be internet-based.

In the discussion that followed it was interesting to see that many people still think of the internet as something that requires you to sit at a computer in a fixed location. This is the mental model that is now out of date, thanks to three developments in technology:

1. Wireless communication;
2. Relentless miniaturisation;
3. Negligible storage costs.

Thanks to these we can now store unimaginable amounts of data on a web server at virtually zero cost (I have about 10GB on my hard drive, I could store the whole lot on my web site for about $15 a month if I chose. Why don’t I? Well because I’m stuck in that mental model that sees data as tangible objects stored in a PC on my desk.) Once we get into the habit of storing data on the web instead of our own personal hard drives, wireless technology will let us get access to it from almost anywhere in the world. And miniaturisation will let us work with our web sites using a gadget the size of our mobile phones.

All that’s missing is technology that creates an image without the need for a screen plus new ways of entering data that don’t require a bulky keyboard and we’re into a completely new era of communicating information that will not only change the way we learn, it will change everything in our lives. The reason we can’t easily imagine how is that we’re locked into superseded mental models. But I reckon it’s all damn exciting.

Who said you can’t teach old dogs new tricks?

bye til next time