Boomeranged Metaphors

At the start of the digital era, metaphors from everyday life were used – in what was then the new computer environment –  in order to make otherwise incomprehensible technology acceptable. Terms such as the digital highway and the desktop metaphor with its windows, folders, buttons and trashcans made the computer world accessible to almost everyone.

By now, of course, the digital environment is accepted almost everywhere and we see how proven concepts from the digital realm are gradually seeping into our physical environment. We call this phenomenon a ‘boomeranged metaphor’.

The delete key eraser, the pixel oven gloves, and the icon watch are amusing, somewhat anecdotic illustrations of this principle.

Yet, it is not unlikely that we will be confronted with more radical boomeranged metaphors in the near future. Are the advanced ranking systems found in Internet forums perhaps also applicable to the democratic voting process? Will the young players of SimCity turn out to be the urban developers of the future? Can I click and select a new avatar at the plastic surgeon’s office? Will Second Life ultimately become First Life?

Arguably, there is really nothing new under the sun. When Edison first introduced his electric lamps, signs were hung in the room explaining that a lamp was not a candle and that you could simply use the switch by the door, instead of lighting it with a match. While today, we don’t think of light bulbs as ‘media’, back in the 19th century, electrically simulated candlelight was still a radically new and unfamiliar technology that needed some explaining.

Metaphors enable us to use familiar physical and social experiences to understand and accept unknown phenomena: a sort of lubricant for innovation. And before you know it, you are familiar with the horseless carriage and you simply drive around in a ‘car’.

Undoubtedly the digital technologies that have emerged during our lifetime, are well on their way of becoming just as familiar and  part of everyday life as electric light, bicycles or writing pens. Perhaps some day, our children will even be using them metaphorically in order to familiarize with the – otherwise incomprehensible – emerging technologies of their time.

See also:  Conversations at the doctor, Metaphors be with you, Your grand-grand-parents new media, Third life, Digital trashcan brought to physical office, When Facebook gets physical, Google 2084.