If you already read the pages on Identification and Evaluation, then
you have a good idea of what the HP 48G looks like and what it can do.
I now want to spend some time talking about how our society, meaning the
general public of today, views this artifact.
First, let me start off by saying that the words, "HP 48G", by
themselves don't have any meaning to the average members of our culture.
They have never even heard of it, but they do know terms like
calculator, Casio, computer, and IBM. So, we can already see that this
gadget has been marketed towards a rather small group, namely people of
the engineering and mathematics disciplines. Even on campus, I had
to get all the way across Campus Drive to within earshot of the engineering
building before I found someone who could tell me what a HP 48G was. The
liberal arts students on the mall have just never really been exposed to it.
In order to find out more about what the average person would think
about my artifact, I decided to show it to them and ask their first
impressions. The people who had never heard of it by name were most
surprised by its size. One person exclaimed, "you call this hand-held?".
Another person thought that the large LCD was a television screen and
said, "so that's what you engineers are doing in the library all day".
She couldn't believe that such a large screen could be "just for numbers".
After allowing them to look at it more closely, I asked them to
tell me what kinds of things they thought that it might be able to do.
Many people added funny answers such as "tie your shoes", and "find
you a date". At first I was going to disregard these answers because
the people were just trying to have a little fun while I interrupted
their day by posing such a strange question. However, I think even
these silly responses tell us something about the way our society
connects the idea of social outcasts to the users of high-tech gadgets.
Maybe I'm being defensive, but even these
harmless, funny answers seem to show that the average public views
mathematically-oriented people (those who obviously have a need for this
expensive calculator) as those who sit in the library all day,
have no love life, and can't even tie their shoes.
It would seem that in the minds of the average college student,
the idea of my HP 48G goes synonymous with pocket protectors and horned-
rimmed glasses. It would be used by "geeks" and "enginerds".
I think that in some cases, this view may be right-on. There are
quite a few engineers that fit this mold. However, there are many who
clearly do not fit this mold yet are still labelled as such. It seems
that the reason for this labelling of
all math and science-oriented people as "geeks" goes well beyond the excuse
of "call-'em like I see-'em".
There is a larger underlying reason for this generalization.
In our society, a lot of emphasis is placed on being successful.
I certainly won't argue that. However, not much importance is placed
on math and science when compared to many other countries,
like Japan for instance. The prestige in our society lies in athletic
ability and good-looks. This is evident when you consider that just about
every 12 year-old could tell you who Wesley Snipes is, but very few know
who won a nobel prize in science.
Therefore, one reason for the labelling of mathematically inclined
people as "geeks" is that people envy them for the money they will make,
which is seen as being successful, but they aren't really impressed
by the talent that the "geek" possesses. Society doesn't see math wizards
as heroes, more like freaks of nature. Of course, I'm exaggerating, but
this feeling does exist in our society.
To sum up, society as a whole tends to view the artifact as a
very big, complicated calculator, most likely owned by a "geek" or
"enginerd". The stigmas attached to these labels, include things
like living in
the library, having no love life, and not being able to conform to
socially acceptable dress codes (like having your shoes tied). These
generalizations stem from society's emphasis on athletic ability and
good-looks rather than on math and science.
The final operation to be performed on my artifact, Interpretation,
can be accessed by selecting it below.
Return to introduction of Project 1
Identification
Evaluation
Return to top of this page
Interpretation