Money as an Interface
Belén Barros Pena · interactions · 2023
perspectives to the matter.We have the sociologists, for whom money is first and foremost a social relation-a universally accepted measure of value originally established through hegemonic power but now constantly co-constructed, negotiated, and maintained through the interplay between economic agents and monetary authorities [1].Anthropologists have also chimed in, defining money as "an instrument of collective memory" [2], a way of remembering the relationships we establish with others.For media scholars, cash is "a mass media form," and money itself is becoming social media [3].But what about human-Money, it would seem, has always been a puzzle.-Geoffrey Ingham Nobody seems to know what money is.This is despite all of us using money every day-or perhaps because of it.The question What is money?has traditionally been a subject reserved for economists.Their standard answer is that money is what money does, and that money does three things: It is a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value.Perhaps dissatisfied with this function-centered answer, other disciplines have started to volunteer alternative definitions of money, bringing their own particular N Insights → As designers, we should acknowledge the fundamentally social nature of money.→ We must design financial technologies that facilitate and nurture collaborative financial behaviors.→ We must abandon our focus on convenience and optimization, and envision technologies that safeguard money as a public good and enable financial citizenship.