I saw this Nokia ad in Wired: A man and an attractive woman are seemingly out on a date together. A connection can happen anywhere, Nokia reminds us. How nice for these two people, enjoying each other’s company. Oops, what’s that? The man is holding a portable electronic device just below the table edge, where’s looking at a baseball game. The connection the man is experiencing isn’t with another person, but with media.
Nokia is encouraging us to use their technology to emulate this cad? To surreptitiously play with their digital appendages while half-faking an interaction with another person? If this technology has merit, why doesn’t he put it on the table so they can look at it together?
We often hear that technology has no inherent good or bad attributes, and it’s the way it ends up being used that determines that. But what about design, based on use scenarios? Or advertising, putting those stories out there in order to drive interest and adoption? It’s one thing when advertising plays “naughty” and we’re in on the joke, but that’s not the tone I get from this; I just see a guy being a jerk and Nokia encouraging the rest of us to follow suit.