“Network Effects” provides users with an experience of human life mediated through the capacity of an online network. Upon entering the text, readers/users are presented with the statement “Your time here is limited”, a phrase that the authors of the piece say induces a sense of anxiety and a fear of missing out on the entire piece within the scope of how long they have to explore. Using the IP address of the computer the user is viewing Network Effects from, the site determines a time limit based upon the home country of the computer and its user. Ultimately the choice to provide this defined of a limit enhances the user’s experience with the text, constantly negotiating not just the time limits of exploration but those of life. Once the “life” of the piece is over, users are barred from accessing the site again for 24 hours and encourages them to return to their normal life. This feature of the text immediately made me think back to our discussion on the affordances of books. In its own way, Network Effects is a finite text, limited by time of access. However, the ability to re-access the text after 24 hours, and the ability for the computer to recognize this time constraint, modifies that affordance of a finite text seen in a physical book to the digital space.
My own interaction with the piece was one filled with awe and fascination. Perhaps the most pivotal moment in my experience was when I first recognized the heartbeat constantly pulsing within the cacophony of sound, video, and information bombarding my senses. Witnessing the physical sound take hold of the image and beat within the videos grounded my experience in the idea of a lifetime. Again, I thought about the idea of finiteness as an affordance of text that mimics life.
Throughout these past two weeks, following the abrupt end of my senior year and Davidson experience, the idea of finite moments has preoccupied a lot of my now ample free time. I’ve constantly been grappling with the idea that moments happen and exist only within a certain time and space and are over just as quickly as they came. Moments are always ahead but what they contain is unknown, just like how when clicking on a word, a user of “Network Effects” is unaware of the facts, sounds, and videos of life they will encounter. Ultimately, looking at “Network Effects” through the lens of my present experience enabled me to grapple with thoughts of moments and endings and life in a way previously foreign to me and cope with the progression of life, albeit too fast
Overall, “Network Effects” is without a doubt one of my favorite pieces from this class and from my experience at Davidson (and as an English major I’ve encountered a lot of texts/pieces). In fact, after finishing my own viewing I copied the link and sent it along to my friends and family to explore for themselves.