Behind the Sheen

Behind The Sheen: The Interface

How do you communicate with someone when you don't speak their language? You get a translator!

In the early days of the computer, you had to know its language to communicate with it. But the emergence of the World Wide Web (The Internet, the Information Superhighway or whatever you want to call it) brought “graphical user interfaces and hypertext structures, [which] made networked computers a useful tool for common users and consequently became a mass medium by 1995.” (Schafer 2001).

These interfaces are what make the web useable without having to learn programming code:
“The 'graphical user interface' (GUI) transformed the computer screen from a surface with glowing symbols and text to one which displayed icons and, later, digital images.” (Friedberg, 2006).

It's important to understand that what you see when you log on to a social media site like Facebook or Twitter, or a search engine like Google, is not what the web really looks like, it's a graphic representation of the programming language, which is easier for every day users to interact with. The interface is essentially your translator!
To get a better idea of how interfaces work, let's take a look at what Facebook, Twitter and Google really look like.

The cursor and “mouse” are also an interface which makes a computer easier to use. They are part of the “WIMP” interface – Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pull-down Menus (Friedberg 2006). Together, these tools make the web easier for everyone to access and use, but they also hide how it actually functions: “By mapping code onto a graphic display, the GUI interface conceals its workings, hides its code.” (Friedberg 2006).

Google Search and the Algorithm

But here's what Facebook really looks like behind that interface. The fancy blue and grey screen you see is just the representation of this code:

Here's Twitter's homepage:

But here's what is behind Twitter's page:

And finally, here's the very straightforward homepage for Google:

But here is just a small part of the code that is needed to make that very simple homepage:

In Networks Without a Cause, Geert Lovink discusses Google's development of a technology which collects information in an attempt to target relevant advertising at users: “In 2008, Google patented a technology that enhances its ability to 'read the user'. The intention is to decipher which page regions and topics the viewer is interested in, based on the viewer's activity after they have arrived at a page – one example of the many analytical techniques the media company is developing to study and commercially exploit user behavior.” (Lovink 2011)

This is how Google (and other companies) are making money from our use of their free services. Not so free after all.

When everything is hidden behind the “sheen” - that fancy (or even simple, as we saw with Google), pretty looking front page is what we think we are interacting with, but it's just deceiving us. If we just use these tools without understanding how they function and what effect they have on us, we are giving a lot of power to the companies that are developing these websites for our use. Companies will advocate for the use of their websites as a method of free participation and networking, but they are getting a lot in return from our use, and the interfaces keep this well hidden. They make it easy for us to sign up and use their services, and in return our use earns them money. Why else would for-profit sites like Facebook or Google let us sign up and use their services for free if they weren't making money from us some other way. Most sites these days make money from advertising.

It gets even more complicated when you start looking into how Google searches function. Google programs their search information and function through what they call the “PageRank” algorithm. Algorithms are mathematical procedures for solving problems. In computer science, they are built programs which can solve particular problems. Google specifically builds these programs to determine and organize the relevancy of millions of websites to your search query (“Facts About Google and Competition”). The algorithms determine this relevancy through links – the more links to and from a page on that subject, the more relevant it is, and the higher it will be placed in your search results: “PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites.” (“Facts About Google and Competition).

But how can we be sure that these websites are the most important or truthful answers to our search query? The short answer is that we can't. In The Googlization of Everything (2012), Siva Vaidhyanathan discusses the inherent problems with Google's PageRank algorithm. He says: “Not all hyperlinks are created equal... By relying on PageRank, Google has historically favored highly motivated and Web-savvy interests over truly popular, important, or valid interests. Being popular or important on the web is not the same as being popular or important in the real world.” (63).

Therefore we should be aware that what comes up in Google's search engine as the "most relevant" or "most important" link may not always be the most trustworthy or important opinion.

References

“Facts About Google and Competition.” Web. 28 Nov. 2012.

Friedberg, Anne. “The Multiple.” The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2006. 193. Print.

Lovink, Geert. Networks Without a Cause: A Critique of Social Media. Wiley, 2012. Print.

Schäfer, M. T. Bastard Culture!: How User Participation Transforms Cultural Production. Amsterdam University Press, 2011. Print.

Vaidhyanathan, Siva. The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry). University of California Press, 2012. Print.

Here's what you see when you log on to Facebook: