During my now constant quest to notice and analyze manipulation around me, I found myself noticing manipulation in the use of signs in the science center fishbowl. Since most science theses are yearlong, most of the science majors are now writing/finishing their theses, and due to the nature of some projects, they need to use the computers in the fishbowl to accomplish this. Some of the senior projects require using the computers for long periods of time to crunch numbers to determine viability of protein folding patterns or binding sites. For these applications, students will often put a sign on the computer that says, "experiment in progress" in order to keep other people from using the computer and messing up their data acquisition. Others, however, just need to use the computers for typing their papers or for briefly sending data off to the local supercomputer for analysis.
I found out today from one of my friends that someone who is using the computers for the latter reason has been using an, "experiment in progress" sign despite the fact that it is not actually true. This manipulation was undergone simply because the student didn't want anyone else messing with their computer even though they weren't using it themselves. This made me think about the fact that personally, I often don't question the validity of signage. I think that this is probably because with a sign rather than a person, there is nothing to argue with. You can't carry on a conversation with a sign, and therefore I at least tend to trust them. In this case, a sign was telling me a blatant lie, but I had no grounds to disagree, and therefore took its truthfulness for granted.
I really liked your point on how signs manipulate us far more easily than people do, and that we are quick to follow signs and not question their validity. This is a weird example, but bathroom signs are very manipulative in that they are labeled by gender. If someone didn't want me in a particular room, all they would have to write is "Men's" on the door and I would not enter because I have been conditioned by society's gender boundaries. Again, strange example, but you are right in saying that I am far less likely to argue with a sign then I am with a person.
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