Citizen Science, Anxiety and Mars
By Casey Douglass
I was browsing
YouTube... well, browsing is too active a word for it really. I was
looking at stuff the YouTube algorithm decided to sling my way... and
I came across a video by Anton Petrov about a mysterious dimming
star. As part of this video, Anton talks about citizen science, a way
for non-expert people to take part in the analysis of data that is
just too vast to tackle in the usual way. A site he mentioned,
Zooniverse.org, looked quite enticing, and I really liked the idea of
spending a bit of time now and then, helping out with some of the
more space orientated projects.
That all sounds quite
good, I thought. I didn’t realise however, that it would feed into
my anxiety issues, and almost lead me to quit in the attempt. Not due
to anything wrong with Zooniverse or how things are presented; the
issues I encountered were the usual old ‘Casey’ issues. I didn’t
quit though, and I’m now in a more comfortable place with it. I
thought that I would write this post as a way to reinforce what I’d
learned (or reminded myself of) and that maybe, someone, somewhere,
might also find that interesting or be helped by it.
Once I was signed up on
Zooniverse (a very quick process), I was able to browse the various
projects that were looking for help. Whether I was just over-tired or
just not bright enough, I was taken aback by the complexity of some
of the tasks. I had a hard time choosing which one I wanted to try. I
eventually settled on a project called Cosmic, an endeavour that has
volunteers labelling images from Mars.
Cosmic stands for
Content-based Object Summarization to Monitor Infrequent Change.
Space exploration is limited by data bandwidth between the Earth and
whichever equipment is being remotely controlled. Usually the
camera-laden robot sends the data direct to Earth and only gathers as
much data as can actually be sent. Scientists look at the results and
decide where to point it next. This leads to downtime for a robot
that could be put to much more use. It also isn’t conducive to the
robot reacting to real-time events, such was the weather, as they
happen in its environment.
The Cosmic project aims
to use machine learning to train a system that will help in the
development of future Mars orbital spacecraft, ones that can
continuously gather and analyse data themselves, sending the most
interesting stuff home first. The project on Zooniverse is designed
to help with the development of this software, and it entails the
volunteers inventorying pictures of various types of surface activity
on Mars. At the moment, these surface features fall into a number of
categories: Araneiforms (spider-like features), Trough networks,
Linear features and ‘Other’. These are further split into ones
with ‘deposits’ or not, and a description of the image background
brightness.
I read through the
background material, the tutorial, and the Field Guide that you can
draw on for more help, and I unexpectedly found myself stressing and
picking at things. I think I instantly put a lot of pressure on
myself to make the right decision on each image, even though the FAQ
explicitly states that each one will be labelled by many people, and
that they would be reviewed once again before use. This should mean
that multiple people would have to make the same mistake and even
then, an expert would likely pick up on it before conclusions are
drawn. You’d think that would have made an impression on my mind
when I first read it, but I think I was already feeling a bit
overwhelmed.
Overwhelm is a pain in
the backside for a tired, anxious mind (yes, minds have backsides in
this post, get over it). So is being overly perfectionistic,
intolerant of uncertainty and having the general urge to avoid
mistakes, to be a ‘good’ person, and to not let anyone down. If
you wanted to mix a head-fuck cocktail, those are some pretty potent
ingredients. I was tired, I ‘tipped in’ the Field Guide sections
about araneiforms, light and dark deposits, troughs and all the other
stuff, and gave it a good ol’ shake. There wasn’t much room for
the small mental voice that tried to get me to chill-out. I didn’t
even hear it when it said “You’ve only just read all of this
stuff and you expect to digest it instantly? Relax!’
I started to look at
other projects, ones looking for local group clusters, gravity
ripples and other kinds of research. All had their own levels of
intricacy and overwhelm, and none seemed to be something that jumped
out at me as ‘easier’ to get into. So I persisted with Mars. Good
old Mars.
My next session of
trying to give a label to photos went a little better but still ended
with an exclamation of ‘Fuck it!’ and a switching of browser tab
to see what was happening on Twitter. Sometimes it’s just a bad
time to attempt certain things. It wasn’t until my next attempt
(these attempts were on different days) that I felt more at ease. I
still had the mental chatter rabbiting away about making a mistake,
not being good enough, bright enough, whatever enough, but I was able
to label some interesting Mars features with a little more
confidence, and to also not feel too inadequate for clicking the
‘Unsure’ button a number of times.
As with most things
that cause anxiety, exposing to it in small doses can gradually coax
the mind into not overreacting to it, to ease off on squirting
adrenaline into the body, to generally acclimatize to the discomfort
you feel. I know this. I know it back to front and side to side. It
still catches me out in periods where I’m extra tired, stressed, or
even in times of being overly happy. Emotions are tricksy things,
setting off all kinds of associations and reactions and memories. I
usually pick up on it before it forces me away from something, but this
time I was kept asleep at the keyboard.
Maybe if I’d been
doing something more selfish I would have avoided the ‘do goody’
imperative, but I dare say I’d have just felt guilty for pissing
away my time on something less worthwhile. Whatever happened, I came
through it though, and that’s the main thing. I wouldn’t say I
look forward to looking at pictures of Mars's surface features again,
but I don’t dread it now. In time I hope to gain a little sense of
achievement and of helping with something that just seems so cool to
me, but for now, not wanting to pack it in is a sign of things moving
in the right direction. I also hope that I’ll remember this post
when I trip up again (and I will trip up again).
Thanks for reading. If
you didn’t already, visit Zooniverse.org for more information about
citizen science, and also visit Anton on YouTube, he makes some great
space videos and is clearly passionate about the wonders of the
universe.
