Making technology vs. using technology

I had a great conversation today with Glen Lowry about making: you know, making actual stuff, like objects or art, as opposed to quasi-making (like writing or thinking). I found myself replaying our conversation this evening when my attempt to write a blog post turned into yet another evening of tinkering with my blogging software.

Which one of these activities counts as making: writing the blog post, or playing with the box it came in — that is, the blogging software itself? It strikes me that this is one of those lines that divides technology lovers from technology users.

Except it’s not really a line, it’s a continuum that reflects how people relate to technology, and how technology fits into whatever it is they do or make. For some people, the technology is purely instrumental — a way to make stuff — where for others, the technology is in some way what they make. I’ve come up with some guesstimates of how much time people spend working with technology, versus how much time they spend working on technology, depending on where they sit on this spectrum:

• Passive users: Use the software they find on their computer (as installed by a manufacturer or IT department) according to the instructions or their basic intuition. 99% of their tech use consists of actually using tools to do something else, and maybe 1% goes to troubleshooting.
• Active users: If the installed software tools don’t quite cut it, or they hear about something interesting, or their computer tells them to install it, active users might add a program or two. But they’ll still use their computer, phone etc more or less as intended. 90% of their time goes to using technology to do something else, and 10% goes to trying out new options or learning to make better use of what they have.
• Seekers: Seekers have a sense that their tech could work a little better for them, so they try new things that appear on their radar, and seek out new tools that sound interesting. They hear that Twitter is cool, so they try it; they hear that Twitter is more fun if you have client software, so they try out a couple of options like Tweetdeck and Nambu. But what they find, they use as prescribed. They spend about 80% of their time using technology to do something, and 20% looking for the next super-cool tool that will make everything better.
• Tinkerers: Tinkerers enjoy playing with tech and seeing how they can bend to their will, so they are constantly shifting back and forth between using technology to get stuff done, and working on the technology itself. They are tweaking settings, installing plug-ins, running upgrades, and adding new hardware and software to their toolkit. They spend about 60-70% of their time using technology to do something, and 30-40% of their time making their technology work better.
• Hackers: Hackers find it viscerally annoying to use technology that doesn’t work right — as in, the way they want it to work. So while they may start out using a piece of hardware or software to get something done, they are likely to invest a lot of time in altering or creating a new solution that works the way they think it should. They spend about 30-40% of their time using technology, and 60-70% of their time making and fixing hardware and software so it works right.
• Developers: Developers enjoy making more than using. Sure, they need to send e-mails just like the rest of us, but mostly what they are e-mailing is snippets of code on their latest project. Technology isn’t what they use: it’s what they make. So they spend about 80-90% of their tech time actually making technology, and only 10-20% using someone else’s.

I think something interesting starts to happen at around the “seeker” point in this continuum. As people start to spend more time working on their technology — thinking actively about what tools they want to use, and what will make them most effective — the technology stops being a tool and starts to be in some way a creative product. Even if you never touch a line of code, the simple decision to take charge of your iPhone — to replace that background image with a picture that inspires you, or to add a couple of apps that let you track where you’ve been and what you’ve seen — puts you in the driver’s seat, and makes your phone (or computer, or TV) into an expression of what matters to you.

But is it making? Is tweaking, hacking or even building your own computer the same as imagining an object that never existed and making it from scratch? If I could stop tinkering with my WordPress plugins I could pick up a paintbrush or chisel and let you know.