Immersion
The clear aim of digital media is immersion: to suspend disbelief long enough for the user to believe the virtual world is an extension of the physical world. On the one hand, it is a noble aim to create seamless interdependencies in our lives, as well as promote engagement with life-enhancing technologies. On the other hand, it can detrimentally confound very real differences between the physical and the digital, leaving the design of virtual worlds at the mercy of unquestioned biases.
Role of human error
This is why I believe tolerance and even integration of glitches in design will become more prevalent. For starters, what developers recognize as glitches are not always what consumers recognize as glitches. Many times it is a design flaw, like forgetting to adjust a character’s path to a changed terrain, which a user identifies as a glitch. This flexibility gives the perception of glitches a cultural importance, since they place human error in a broader cultural perspective.
Glitch and Agency
Further, it can be argued that glitches inspire critical thinking. It is not until we have to think about the laws that govern the digital world as independent of the laws that govern our own, that we can begin to think critically about the virtual functionalities and behaviors. Because of this, when we recognize a glitch, a purer agency is revealed that is nonexistent when we are merely engaging with the digital world as expected.
Glitch-hunting
“Glitch-hunting” can be a stimulating attitude to adopt toward technological systems, and its adoption will have far-reaching effects. To be encouraged and to be able to perceive systems in a state of entropy and re-situate one’s self in relationship to the system can be incredibly empowering. This experience can inspire changes toward real-life systems like socio-political institutions and ways of behaving that we take for granted as societies and individuals.
Physical ≠ Digital
Overall, though, I believe maintaining and nurturing the distinction between the digital and the physical could help us maintain a healthier relationship with technology. It is only by maintaining that healthy charge of polarity between physical needs and digital needs that our thinking can purposefully influence the design of new technologies. Otherwise what we mistake for an extension of ourselves becomes merely an imitation of our less than accurate impressions of reality.
These musings are heavily influenced by my research into glitch perception in video games, mainly Justyna Janik’s article on Glitched Perception.