As reported previously, Apple seems to have an eating disorder. Others have picked up on Apple’s movement towards “thinnovation.” Is it in dialog with greater social trends, in particular the shrinking waistlines of celebrities and fashion models? Maybe it’s a stretch to equate the MacBookAir with anorexia, but I would certainly link it to the increasing ephemerality of technology. As Bruce Mau says, the goal of (system) design is to become invisible, innocuous.
Apple has declared itself the master of “thinnovation.” (Head to your nearest Apple and you’ll see this word-creation plastered on the store-front window.) It troubles Shannon McCartney-Simper, manager of business development of the Eating Disorders Institute in St. Louis Park.
“My 12-year-old daughter and I were looking at the MacBook Air online, and the words right out of her mouth were, ‘Wow, look how thin that is!’ ” she said. “Of course that’s appealing to young people. It’s what they’re used to believing is the ideal.”
McCartney-Simper can’t help but consider the parallels between ultrathin computers and people who are striving to be ultrathin. “These laptops are really thin and portable — almost like you can hide them,” she said. “And then you take that to another level, and you think of how women so often want to hide their bodies.”
(via Ypluse)
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