Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Society moves online.

You can hear the chiding of parents to their children these days that they need to get off the computer and “get a life”. This theme resounds just not within the walls of our homes, but has spread throughout pop culture. One particular television commercial that reminds me of this phenomenon is the car manufacturer commercial where the child is concerned about the social well-being of her parents. She says that she was “really aggressive” with her parents about joining Facebook and then mentions that they are up to “19 friends now” and that she has “687 friends”. “This is living”, she says.
Those who do not use social media technology do not understand its lure. Having worked for America Online as an online guide back in the early 1990s has kind of helped me with this perspective a bit and help me to understand the concept and the attraction of LOL (Living On Line).
There are several factors of social media that makes it attractive, at least to me. First is the anonymity and sense of security that comes with not having to face people directly. There is an aspect of safety that comes from interacting with people in an asynchronous fashion that allows me to say what I want to say and be who I want to be without the constraints placed on me in face to face social interactions. I do not have to deal with hurt feelings instantaneously; rather, I can think carefully about what I want to say next before I say it. I can backspace before I hit send and the other party does not know what I was about to say and didn’t.
Other things that I find attractive about social technology:
  • I can be whoever I want to be, even if I am just lying to myself and nobody else believes me. If I am discovered and outted, I can create a new account and recreate myself yet again.
  • I don’t have to get dressed up to interact with my friends.
  • My friends don’t have to live around me, so I can find and interact with more people who share my interests.
  • Because my friends don’t necessarily share the same geographical time zone limitations, I can interact with them anytime I want.
  • With the help of Google and Wikipedia, I can be the smartest person I know, online.
  • I can keep my friends separated by activity and interests. If one group of friends find something I think or something I do to be “weird” or uninteresting, I know that there is another group who does not. I can hang out with whomever I want depending on my mood.
  • I can shop without going out.
  • I can order in without getting dressed.
  • I can play games for as long as I want.
  • I don’t have to be nice all the time.
  • I can always find someone who sympathizes or empathizes with my situation, whatever that situation is.
  • I do not have to commit to anything.
  • No matter what I say or do, someone out there agrees with me.
Scene from Surrogates © Touchstone Pictures 
I can certainly understand the lure of having “687” friends online and it certainly does not surprise me that social media technology is sweeping the world. My list is nowhere near comprehensive in terms of the reasons why people prefer the online society as opposed to the “real world”. The movie “Surrogates” takes online media just a step further where participants control humanoid robots that act as real life avatars in the real world.

While the movie is pure fiction, the concept of controlling an avatar in a virtual world is already here in both gaming technologies and advanced social media environments such as Second Life.
Screen Capture from Second Life

Second Life is an interactive 3D virtual world that allows participants to not just interact with each other, but also interact with objects within the virtual environment. The next natural step to online gaming and 3D virtual realities is immersive virtual human interface devices that will allow for the "Surrogate" type experience in a virtual environment much like in the form of the "Matrix" rather than attempting to build androids to interact in the real world.

We can carry this paradigm even further to include 3D immersive virtual training environments that allows students to not only be in class from anywhere, but to also interact and interact with objects within that environment without the risks involved with damaging equipment  or endangering lives.  Because there is no limitation on the number of training aids that you can have in a virtual environment, there is never an issue with sharing equipment to be trained on.  Additionally, demonstrations can be done on a one-on-one level in a virtual room full of students as there is not the spatial limitations that would normally be associated with a real room full of bodies all jockeying for position to be able to see the demonstration.  Virtual environments allow lessons to be recorded and replayed at will for students who may not have fully understood the lesson the first time around.
Amiga Virtual 3-D Simulator-Virtuality
The potential of online social media has only touched the tip of a very large iceberg with many applications that go far beyond simply being able to asynchronously connect to people around the world.  The internet combined with virtual immersive 3D technologies has the potential of changing the very way that we deal with the world around us.  It is both exciting and scary at the same time as we consider all of the possibilities, both good and bad.

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