Digital Tones and Pavlov’s Dog – A New Language ?
An exploration of our times - with tongue mildly planted in cheek
by Anno Nymus
"In 1927, Ivan Pavlov experimented with his dog on the subject of psychological training—specifically conditional stimuli and response. He found that when he rang a bell each time before he fed his dog, the dog no longer salivated in response to the food, but to the bell."
A conditional response is when you're trained to respond to something such as Pavlov's Bell as opposed to using simply your reflexes.” * – Urban Dictionary
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'Hotel California', an album recorded by the Eagles, (greatest selling album of the 1970's), used a subliminal ringing phone
at the end of a long passage to refocus your attention to the next lyric !
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This was my first personal experience with social engineering -- using audio tones. At the time I thought it was very clever. We have all been programmed since childhood to answer a phone quickly, so we get a vague sense of urgency to respond to a subliminal ringing phone. Folks then take a mental beat to give the issue some unconscious attention unaware they are seeking a source for the ringing phone. Thus we have a physical reaction that makes us 'look' !? Hmmm ?? This is what brought Pavlov and his famous dog to mind.
I think the social engineering folks have sussed this pretty well .. and the folks who brought you the cloud, might now be programming us - subliminally -- are we taking the bait? Now the stimulus is overt – outright notification tones and alerts emitted by our devices.
Have you ever raced or fumbled to answer an insistently ringing phone? Do you get a mild rush of anxiety when you just barely miss that call ? The area of emotional manipulation by alerts, is a growing phenomenon worth looking into.
Example: A notification triggers a sense of urgency (and probably some adrenaline .. further fueling the sense of urgency – metaphorical salivation?). Youth especially are committed to the social media phenomenon, and some research suggest there may be a chemical-endorphin 'reward' component to their compulsion to achieve notices and comments with constant alerts? Everyone has their own personalized tones, beeps, squawks, and alerts, or silent-vibration mode to catch every notification possible. Any group today will have a stew of phones and notification tones going off.
Since the advent of of the digital age it seems our lives are continuously driven by endless notifications and digital sounds throughout our personal 'audio-dome' - environment.
Noise Pollution - and our personal 'Audio-Dome'
There is an area of research called Noise Pollution, which deals with social problems created by digital sounds.
In the ER, folks have to instantly assess, understand, and react to the meanings of the various equipment tones, alarms, and beeps ! But there is a serious “Catch 22”. Many of the machines use similar tones for opposite functions or conditions, or opposite tones for the same functions. Noise Pollution, can literally be dangerous !
Each of us has a palette of notification tones programmed into our sundry devices. Each notification or silent buzz , has meaning to us. It's our own code, and we know how to process each notification. We ingest a panoply of alerts, consciously, or subliminally in our daily personal activities. This constitutes our personal Digital Noise - Audio Pollution Dome.
"Beepspeak" ? - A new language ?
I think Digital Noise Pollution has become a new kind of unspoken 'digital language' in a curious way : an audio pollution-collusion, contusion, and intrusion that I like to call “Beepspeak” !
This 'Beepspeak' brings me to think again of Pavlov! Epiphany ! Have we been programming ourselves, whilst programming our devices ?!? Perhaps in doing so, have we made ourselves 'digital' Pavlovian dogs ??
You can't put the poop - back in the horse. We sure would be in a mess without these notifications. The world would grind to a halt in short order, but where is all this notification taking us ?
Is this digital cacophony some weird mystical new unspoken language or tower of babel ? Could this be presaging some digital “AI bot” take over by programming us to react to various notifications?
No voting required madam, the computer voted for you – with who it thought you liked – based on your notification history ?
The sky is falling ! – the sky is falling !
Beeps, alerts and tones control us more than we would like to admit. We continue to program ourselves to jump at an alert – whose sound demands and insists, that we react !
Do we need to be concerned ? What does this unseen phenomena signify? Where is this digital whirlwind of alerts taking us? What are we becoming because of it ? What – if anything – should, or can be, done about it? Hmmm … Tag ! You're 'It' !
Mysteries yet abound doncha know ? Thanks Pavlov for leading us to this new “Beepspeak” !
What are your devices telling you ?
Riiiinnnnnngg ! ! !
... still scratching my head over the future,
so with tongue firmly planted in cheek ..
until next time ..
Anno Nymus
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