Background: As a class assignment, we were instructed to collect data on what is called our 'personal digital ecology' - in essence, the context within which we engage in and create digital writing - for the span of 7 days. The following is an analysis of that data.
As the word bubble above should demonstrate, the biggest area of my digital writing is done as a part of my job. Between coordinating patient nutrition and procedural transport, as well as logging reports of broken machinery, all of which is done digitally from an satellite location, there is a lot of digital communication flowing back and forth between myself, my team, and hundreds of patients and health care personnel all across the Central Florida area. Outside of my job, however, my digital communication is a bit more straight-forward: texting family and friends, tweeting, email, Facebook and Tumblr blogging to keep up to date on activities and topics of interest. The layout of the word bubble, as well as the color scheme, was chosen to reflect the relative simplicity of the components and individuals involved in my typical digital environment.
When analyzing the data that I had collected, which included the location, time of day and emotion tied to each action, a rather clear dichotomy arose between work and home. That said, while there was an understandable difference in program utilization between the two (mainly due to access), quite a few of the programs I accessed remained the same - all programs which I utilize to communicate with friends and family. It is rather clear to me that the majority of my digital writing is done to develop and maintain interpersonal relationships in my life. Given my insane schedule, this is not a surprise.
In my opinion, the most valuable aspect of my data collection was in recording the reasoning behind my actions in conjunction with the methodology - something Marilyn Cooper, author of "The Ecology of Writing", might be happy about. The perceived and understood audience of the message, as well as the social standards of communication, influenced the content of my messages far more than the technology used to convey them. While certain programs might impose technical limitations on the structure of communication, the intent of message determined what programs were used, not the other way around.
Not to say I think Bruno Latour is total quack job, but in the context of my understanding I find his argument to be a bit constricted.
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