Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Tuesday August 23 2016, @07:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the push,-pull,-swipe,-turn-and-Pong dept.

Late for work in Manhattan, you push the crosswalk button and curse silently at the slowness of the signal change. You finally get a green light, cross the street, arrive at the office, get in the elevator and hit the close door (>|<) button to speed things along. Getting out on your target floor, you find that hurrying has you a bit hot under the collar, so you reach for the thermostat to turn up the air conditioning.

Each of these seemingly disconnected everyday buttons you pressed may have something in common: it is quite possible that none of them did a thing to influence the world around you. Any perceived impact may simply have been imaginary, a placebo effect giving you the illusion of control.

In the early 2000s, New York City transportation officials finally admitted what many had suspected: the majority of crosswalk buttons in the city are completely disconnected from the traffic light system. Thousands of these initially worked to request a signal change but most no longer do anything, even if their signage suggests otherwise.

[...] Today, a combination of carefully orchestrated automation and higher traffic has made most of these buttons obsolete. Citywide, there are around 100 crosswalk buttons that still work in NYC but close to 1,000 more that do nothing at all. So why not take them down? Removing the remaining nonfunctional buttons would cost the city millions, a potential waste of already limited funds for civic infrastructure.

More examples are quoted in linked article, and some suggestions how tech can make our lives more pleasant while waiting - Pong anyone?.

http://99percentinvisible.org/article/user-illusion-everyday-placebo-buttons-create-semblance-control/

-- submitted from IRC


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2016, @04:25AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2016, @04:25AM (#392456)

    They're training people to take one of two avenues:

    First: hit each button. Repeatedly. Thermostat? Light? Traffic signal? Nuclear launch? Doesn't matter. If it didn't work the first time, maybe it waits for more than one to try to measure more people waiting, or impatience, or something like that. Hit all buttons, a lot.

    Second: ignore the damn buttons and do what you want. They don't do anything anyway. Urban/government/corporate planning is full of lies and malice.

    Neither one is a good outcome.